*
*
CHAPTER 3
The next hour and a half flew by in a flash. The Pacer's paint, windows and various brightwork had been exposed to all the polishing, cleaning and rubbing they could handle, so Stella had put away all her tools and remedies to chit-chat a little more with the cool Ricki Deane. There were no more sandwiches in their cooler box, but it would be a day of record-breaking sub-zero temperatures in the Great Fiery Underworld when Stella Starr would run out of Slurrpies, so they had imbibed in the sugary treats - and the carbonated mineral water - to their hearts' delight.
The line-up of quality retro bands continued to play in the central area of the jamboree, but there was a lull in the proceedings as the hard-working roadies brought the instruments for the next act onto the stage. The visitors took full advantage of that by strolling around the area - it led to rows that were once more filled with happy people of all ages and variations.
Any fair-sized crowd would inevitably contain a good deal of photographers, and it did not take long before someone spotted the familiar striking features of Regina Harrison sitting between the black-and-red Javelin and the chocolate-brown Pacer.
Unlike the earlier, greatly stinging fiasco where she had been nudged aside, the second bite of the cherry proved to be more successful for Regina who - naturally - jumped to her feet the second she saw a camera pointed in her direction.
The great contrast between the white-clad, cool, classy and elegant Regina and the black-clad, tough-looking Ricki Deane made for a good motif for the many photographers, and they were soon lining up four deep to snap pictures of the two women in front of the sexy black-and-red Javelin.
The ego-warming sound of clicking cameras meant that Regina could not help herself. She did what came natural and performed the Too Cool For Words-posing routines that were deeply ingrained in her: while going through all her favorite poses, she stood in front of, or sat in, or draped herself over the hood of the muscle car. She made sure the Perfect Light would always fall on her face to accentuate her cheekbones and regal nose, and she flicked her long tresses over her shoulder time and time again to allow every photographer to get a clear view of it. All that was missing from a regular photoshoot was her makeup artist who would touch up her forehead, nose and cheeks between shots.
Ricki declined to take further part after the first thirty pictures had been snapped of her and her car, and she moved over to stand next to Stella instead.
Several minutes went by that were filled with cheering spectators, clicking cameras, cars that rumbled past at walking pace, and Regina Harrison, Star Model Extraordinaire, who continued to pose for all she was worth. A question suddenly came to Stella's mind in the middle of all that, and she turned to the black-clad woman next to her to get it out while it was in there: "Pardon me for askin', Ricki, but are you from Hawaii? You sorta have that complexion."
"Nope, but you're in the ballpark. I have Maori and Samoan blood running around my veins. Maori from my old man, Samoan from my old lady. And the result is a little of this, a little of that and all-woman."
"No doubt about that," Stella said with a grin.
"Yeah. Ricki Deane isn't my birth name. It says Riwia Wharerau on my birth certificate, but I grew sick and tired of everyone mangling it all the damn time. Ricki's from an actress I liked, and Dean's my Dad's first name… so that's what I chose, only with a little tweak. My parents hooked up in Invercargill, New Zealand of all places. Dad worked as a seaman on a packet freighter. Mom was in a shipping supply store. They relocated over here, and I was born here in Bay City. Gum?" Ricki said, digging into her pocket to find a new stick of pink bubblegum.
At the same time, Regina went into a particularly evocative posing routine, and Stella had a hard time tearing her eyes away from her sweetheart. The way the tall, graceful woman presented herself in front of the cameras - even in second-hand 1970s retro garb - proved that Regina Harrison was still the Queen of the Catwalks and knew how to milk the situation for all it was worth. The supportive shouts and happy cheers that rose from the spectators at regular intervals proved they shared her opinion.
When Stella realized she had been spoken to and that the crickets had already been chirping for some time, she stopped fondling her rainbow-colored suspenders and turned back to the woman next to her. "Uhhhh… I'm sorry, Ricki… I kinda zoned out there…"
"Can't imagine why," Ricki said while flashing her trademark lop-sided grin below the black, wraparound shades.
"Uh-huh," Stella replied with a grin that was not lop-sided but all the more cheeky. Regina's posing had meant that her glasses had begun to mist up at the edges, so she took them off and ran a clean cloth over the lenses. "You were saying?" she said as she shoved them back up her nose.
"If ya wanted some gum?"
"No, thank you. Gum and me don't go together. I got this realllllly unfortunate habit of forgetting that I'm chewing gum and not food, so I just swallow it… tried that a couple of times and my tummy doesn't like it," Stella said and patted her body part in question.
"I'll bet. There's nothing like blowin' bubbles when ya fart," Ricki said laconically.
"Uh… yeah. Can't have that…"
"Nope."
The ridiculous topic made them both chuckle; Stella's attention was soon snatched by Regina's posing once more.
---
One-hundred-and-seventeen photos of Regina and the Javelin later, Ricki Deane turned to Stella and put out her hand. A pink bubble popped before she turned the gum over a couple of times to make room to say goodbye: "I got stuff to do so I gotta split. I definitely had a blast today. It's been wicked gettin' to know ya, so let's stay in touch, awright? I already exchanged numbers with your better half."
"Oh! Oh, you betcha, Ricki," Stella said and pumped the tough-looking woman's hand in the traditional greeting. "Yeah, it's been a pleasure. Love your outfit and your car."
"Thanks. Your Pacer is definitely cool too. Quirky as all hell and not afraid to show it. That's wicked. A genuine piece of Americana."
"Holy blip-bloppa-rooney, that's what I always say! Hey, Reggie! Reggie!"
"Yes, dahling?" Regina said just as she flicked her perfect hair over her perfect shoulder and down the back of her perfect 1970s-era tunic for the umpteenth time - the trick was a runaway success with the photographers, so there was no need to save it for a rainy day.
"You gotta relocate your cutie-patootie now 'cos Ricki needs to go."
"Oh, all right… if I must. I'm afraid that's all for today, Ladies and Gentlemen!" Regina said and swept her endless jeans-clad legs off the Javelin's left-front fender. The photographers all moaned, but she performed a bow to let them know the seance was over.
As Regina sashayed away, she fell into her patented model-walk that drew plenty of attention as it always did - even from Ricki who briefly lowered her wraparound shades for the first time all afternoon.
"Wooo-hoooo! You still got it, Reggie!" Stella cried with an impossible wide and cheeky grin playing all over her lips.
Ricki quickly pushed the black shades back up while she let out a throaty chuckle. "Perhaps I should get an airbrush artist to doodle 'Reggie Harrison's ass was here' on my fender, huh?" she said as she nudged Stella's arm with her elbow.
Snickering, Stella adjusted her glasses and her mirror hangers a couple of times. "Yeah… yeah, you could do that."
"I just might. Anyway, it's been a thrill. Stay cool," Ricki said and shook hands with Regina as well before she got into her flashy muscle car and started the engine.
All attempts at conversation became impossible after the three-ninety cubic-inch V8 fired up. The throaty burbling that came from the quad-tip tailpipes drowned out everything else, and it only grew louder from there as Ricki put it in first gear and trickled out of the slot. She dabbed the throttle a couple of times to give the two investigators and the rest of the spectators a proper goodbye, and the dinosaur-like roars were enough to clear her path down to the exit.
"Now that's what I call one helluva classy dame," Stella said with a grin as she hooked her arm inside Regina's. "And a kindred spirit, too. I guess we tuff girrrrls are just naturally attracted to cars from the good ol' American Motors Corporation, huh?"
"Or something," Regina said with a grin. "We swapped telephone numbers so we can stay in touch. I think we should."
"Oh yeah, absolutely. Abso-fricky-frackin'-lutely. And besides… knowing a real estate agent might come in handy. Who knows?"
"Yep. So… do you want to go around a little and look at some of the other cars here, or…?"
Stella scrunched up her face as she tried to make up her mind. She cast a few glances at the happy people filing past and the cars on the other side of the lane, but they did not give her the final push she needed. "Mmmm… I dunno. I think so, yeah. We haven't really seen anything yet… and I need to check out the competition and stuff."
"Well, in that case," Regina said and flicked her long hair over her shoulder where it landed in a perfect cascade - then she pulled Stella in for a sideways hug, "lead on!"
---
The jamboree was such a huge event that Regina and Stella soon gave up the notion of catching it all. If they had insisted on gawking at every car parked on every lane, they would have spent Christmas, the New Year and Easter there as well, but there was so much to see in just the seven or so rows closest to the Pacer that it did not matter.
Happy people continued to swamp the lanes. Children played with balloons or each other as their parents strolled past the many colorful cars on display. People smiled, laughed and exchanged stories about good, bad and horrific experiences they'd had with their machinery. Some had driven several hundred miles to get to the event and some had come from just around the corner, but they all agreed that the annual jamboree was not to be missed.
The bands continued to play on the stage that had been built near the center of the site: Fiddlin' Virginia & Her Country Stompers took care of business with their fiddles, banjos, double-bass and drums. The sextet had the crowd in their hands despite the fact the 1960s-style country music they played was anything but rock'n'roll.
The air was filled with all kinds of scents, smells and odors that reached from roasting suntan lotion past sizzling sausages, sweet candy and warm Castrol GTX motor oil to the old-style exhaust fumes that were far more intense than any that came from modern vehicles.
All the lanes featured endless rows of AMC cars that came, went, or simply cruised around to be seen or to search for somewhere to park. Their straight-sixes and V8s of all types and displacements added their own unique sound to the aural landscape by burbling in many different keys at once. The cars from the 1950s were more sedate in their appearance than the hoppin' pony and muscle cars of the 1960s and early-to-mid 1970s, and especially compared to the occasionally garish designs of the family-friendly vehicles from the 1970s and 1980s. Within the space of three minutes, it was possible to do a time travel from a 1965 Rambler Marlin to a 1969 AMX to a 1974 Gremlin to a 1981 Concord and back to a 1958 Ambassador.
Stella and Regina attracted almost as much attention as the cars around them: The former's period-correct denim jacket and her widely flared, decorated jeans and mirrored hangers made people shoot her plenty of curious - but appreciative - looks, and the latter's cool elegance simply caught everyone's attention as it invariably did.
Stella had a hard time keeping her head on her shoulders; that and her shaggy haystack whipped around constantly to take in all the fantastic, colorful vehicles that were parked or drove past only inches away from her ergonomic shoes. When the family in the melon-yellow 1979 Pacer Wagon who had greeted them out on Fifty-fifth Street drove past, she let out a loud "Whoooop! Whoooop! Go, go Pay-cerrrrrrrr!" and waved like a madwoman to return the earlier favor.
"What do you suppose is going on over there, Stell?" Regina suddenly said. The model moved up her oversized sunglasses to look at a group of people standing in a huddle. Unlike everyone else present at the jamboree, the men and women looked upset and even angry. One of the women wore a neon-yellow crew-vest with white, reflective striping like the fellow in the cowboy hat had done.
"Huh? Where?" Stella said, looking around without seeing anything that seemed out of place. When Regina pointed at the huddle, Stella went up on tip-toes and flipped open her hangers to get a clearer view. "Can't say… but it looks odd. Let's check it out."
---
The people in the huddle were in the middle of an agitated debate when Stella and Regina broke into the circle. At first, Stella could not quite figure out what the hubbub was about, but her blood froze over when she heard the word 'vandalism' being mentioned.
"Vanda-" she croaked out loud which made the others pipe down and stare at her. "Uh… hi. What's that you said about vandalism?"
The people - who were all AMC owners if the logos on their baseball caps and clothes were anything to go by - cast a suspicious look at the mop-topped woman in their midst. "And you are?" the woman who wore the reflective vest said.
"Stella Starr, hiya. This is my business associate Regina Harrison. We're the Harrison-Starr Detective Agency. I also happen to be the owner of a 'seventy-five Pacer. So… the vandalism?"
The men and women in the group looked at each other for a moment before the volunteer worker from the American Motors Owners Club continued: "Some S.O.B. has vandalized a couple of the cars who were given special distinctions by the organizing committee. They were going to compete for a trophy in the Best Showroom Original category."
Now Stella's blood really froze over and she had to take a deep breath to combat it - it prompted Regina to put a calming hand on her shoulder for support. "My Pacer was given one of those neat cards as well," Stella croaked, staring wide-eyed at her sweetheart who grimaced in return.
"I see," the woman from the crew said. "Among other things, tires have been slashed and hubcaps have been stolen. So far, it's happened to an 'eighty-two Eagle, a 'seventy-six Matador, a 'seventy-one Ambassador and a 'seventy-seven Pacer Wagon. The latter got the worst of it 'cos the right-hand side door mirror was broken off as well."
The unwanted, and frightening, news made Stella's hair stand out straight from her head like she was caught in an electrical field. A part of her wanted to sprint back to the Pacer to make sure it was safe, and another part wanted to find the culprit and hand over the anti-social grinch to the authorities - or perhaps to slap the person silly for doing such a horrendous thing. "That. Is. The. Most. Disssssss-pick-a-bell. Thing. I. Have. Heard. In. My. Life!" she croaked in a staccato fashion reserved for the really despicable things like when innocent Pacers were vandalized.
"We agree. So now we're discussing what to do," the woman in the neon-yellow vest said.
Stella blinked several times but her eyes continued to bug out on stalks behind her glasses. Her lips had been reduced to gray lines in her face, and there were even red blotches forming on her cheeks. Should she return to the Pacer, or should she employ all her formidable detective skills to reveal the identity of the vandal? Even a lengthy stint of hemming and hawing did not solve the Gordian knot, but Regina ultimately took the decision for her.
"Stell, do you have your phone with you?" Regina said as she guided her sweetheart a few steps away from the agitated group.
"Yes…"
"All right. Head back to your Old Girl and stand guard. She's a juicy target in her present state… she's way too precious to leave unattended. I'll deal with this thing and call you with regular updates. Okay?"
"O- okay, Reggie… holy-can-of-mackerel-in-pepper-sauce, you read my mind," Stella said in a mumble. "Thanks, Pookie. You're my friend… my best friend… no, my only friend in an evil world where not even defenseless Pacers can live in peace!"
"G'wan, Stell. I know how much she means to you. Go!"
"I'm going, I'm going, I'm no longer here…" Stella said and zipped away. Three-and-a-quarter heartbeats into the zipping, she zipped right back to place a nice, big, wet'un right on Regina's lips - then she zipped away again.
---
A few minutes later, Stella came to a screeching halt in front of her chocolate-brown pride and joy. Everything looked to be in good order at first glance - even down to the high-quality card with the gold laurel wreath and the details of the distinction: it was still stuck under the hidden windshield wipers where she had left it - but she gave the Pacer a bumper-to-bumper and roof-to-wheels inspection to make sure. The sigh of relief that escaped her when she realized that nothing had happened was so deep it came from the bottom of her soul.
She badly needed a pick-me-up after the fright, so she unlocked the rear hatch to take their cooler bag. The heavy-duty emergency called for a heavy-duty soda pop, so she went directly for a can of Slurrpy Raspberry Fizz that she cracked open at once - her hands trembled as she took the first long swig.
While she gulped down the sugary beverage that did in fact soothe her frazzled nerves, she noted that a bright-red Rambler American Convertible from the mid-1960s had filled the gap on the Pacer's right where Ricki Deane had parked her Javelin muscle car earlier. An elderly couple who were most likely the owners sat on lawn chairs at the back of the neat convertible drinking non-alcoholic beers and eating wieners and potato salad.
The pink-and-white 1950s-era sedan was still on the Pacer's left, but it was empty and locked like it had been the whole time. Stella surmised the people who had arrived in it had relocated to somewhere near the stage over at the central area to listen to all the bands. She gave it a check-over just to calm her nerves, but it was unharmed as well.
Her mind had entered a negative loop from the worrying news so she needed to do something positive to offset it and get back on track. After pausing for a moment or two to think of what she could do, she took a few pieces of soft cloth and began to wipe the ubiquitous particles of dust off the Pacer's body panels and glassy areas.
While she did so, she kept vigilant and studied the people filing past the cars on her side of the row. Any investigator worth her salt knew that first looks were often deceiving. It was something she had learned at the very start of her career: no matter how innocent someone tried to appear, a crook could not change his or her demeanor. A good trick was to look people in the eye; not aggressively so, but a casual, friendly glance. She knew that if someone looked away in a hurry, they were worth investigating further. So far, nobody had pinged her crook-dar, but she had a hunch it would only be a matter of time.
-*-*-*-
Seven rows away, Regina held up her smartphone to take a few pictures of the sorry remains of one of the cars damaged by the cold-hearted vandal. The owner of the two-door, two-tone - coffee-and-cream only in reverse: cream-colored up top and coffee-brown below the waistline - 1976 Matador was still seething at the fact that he suddenly had to deal with not only four slashed tires but a radio antenna that had been broken off as well.
A constant stream of severe swearing escaped the sixty-something man's mouth as he held his own telephone to his ear in an attempt at getting hold of someone who could come over at once and change all four wheels. When all his efforts came to nought, he tried his insurance company instead - the color that rolled over his cheeks suggested his luck was no better there.
"Sir, may I have a word?" Regina said and moved forward. She activated her telephone's voice recording app so that every last detail could be saved for posterity and the case file that was sure to be created.
The seething man gave Regina a quick once-over before he gave up trying to contact anyone; after putting his telephone away, he broke out in a shrug. "Yeah, why the hell not…"
"Good afternoon, Sir, I'm Regina Harrison of the Harrison-Starr Detective Agency. I'm investigating the cases of vandalism on behalf of the American Motors Owners Club. I'm sorry this has happened to you. Did you see anything or anyone suspicious before the attack on your car took place?"
"I didn't see a damn thing. I wasn't here," the man said and ran a hand through his thinning hair. "I had to take a leak so I went over to the porta-potties. There was a line so it took me about five minutes to get back. When I got here, it had already happened."
"I see."
"But for Chrissakes, there are only AMC people here! Who the hell would do such a Goddamned thing?" the man continued as he lifted the windshield wiper to pull the card sporting the laurel wreath free. He looked at his wounded Matador's distinction for two seconds before he tore it into eight pieces and threw them away with an angry gesture. "I don't know who's responsible, but the person's gotta be one sick, deranged sonovabitch to do this! Do you have any idea how much four period white-walls cost?!"
"As a matter of fact, Sir, I do," Regina said as she thought back to the lengthy list of expenses that Billy the Mechanic had presented her with following the completion of Stella's Pacer. "All right. Thank you very much for your time. Oh, and I need your name so we can get in touch with you if or when we find the guilty party…"
"Harry DeVall."
"Noted. Thank you very much, Mr. DeVall," Regina said and stopped the voice recording which automatically saved it.
---
Moving on, Regina found Stella's number in the registry. Like her sweetheart, she kept vigilant and studied the people around her while she made the call. So far, nobody she had locked eyes with had seemed to have a guilty conscience, but she had a hunch a development in the unusual case would not be slow in coming.
'Hi, Reggie! Everything's safe and sound here, thank Gawd,' Stella said at the other end of the connection; it prompted Regina to release a sigh of relief in sympathy.
"That's good news, dahling. I was worried there for a moment."
'Me too… holy smokes, I was so worried my hands wouldn't stop trembling… my teeth were chattering too, now that I think of it. A razzie took care of most of it… but never mind that now. Any progress?'
A group of noisy, happy people strolled past Regina just as Stella spoke, so she needed to shield her free ear to pick up everything that was said through the connection. "Whassat, Stell? It's kinda loud here!"
'Did you make any progress?'
"Not really. I spoke to the owner of the Matador. The tires look awful. Somebody definitely took a sharp instrument to them. I'm obviously not a forensic expert, but I'm guessing it must be a fishing knife or something similar. It definitely needs to be extra-sharp to cut through the rubber the way it had."
'Wow, that's just… insane!'
"The owner wasn't there when it happened so he couldn't give me any pointers. It could be anybody… absolutely anybody here." While Regina spoke, she kept up her vigilance without appearing to be doing so. Nobody seemed to stick out, but it was more difficult than usual to interpret what she saw because of all the people who were there to admire the shiny cars.
'Crud. There must be ten thousand visitors at the jamboree! Frickety-fricker-fracker, we'll never catch this fella…'
"Never say never, Stell. The news of the vandalism has spread like wildfire and the owners are alert now," Regina said; her eyes suddenly locked onto a young, blond fellow in a black-and-silver Letterman jacket - the young man could not hold her gaze but turned away at once. "Oh, isn't that interesting…" she said into the telephone.
'What? What?! Did you see someone-'
"Maybe," Regina said as she began to move toward the young man at a slow, unhurried pace like she was merely out for a stroll. When the heavy crowd dispersed for a moment, she realized he was pushing a candy-apple-red baby stroller that was occupied by a very young girl dressed in a romper suit in the exact same design as the young man's Letterman. A moment later, a young woman wearing a breezy summer dress caught up with the other two and placed a quick kiss on the man's cheek before she started licking a strawberry ice cream cone. "Hmmm. No, it was a false alarm," Regina continued as she watched the family walk further down the lane.
'Aw, ding-dong-darn'it!'
"Anyway. The woman from the organizing club told me that only twelve cars had been selected for the category of Best Showroom Original… four have been attacked which leaves eight."
'And my Old Girl is one of those eight… Hmmm. Reggie, we're not gonna use her as bait. That would just kill me stone dead…'
"Wasn't my plan, Sweetie-pie. Uh, neither the bait nor the stone-dead part," Regina said and let out a chuckle.
'Well, that's a blip-bloppin' load off…'
"But with only eight cars left, the risk of your Pacer being next on the list of targets is increasing by the minute. Stay sharp, Stell… stay sharp and don't go anywhere. And I really do mean that. The owner of the Matador told me he was only away for a couple of minutes, but that was all it took."
'Sweet Mother of Pizza, what kind of riff-raffin' creepazoid are we dealing with here?! Flash-raids on Aye Emm Cees! Well, that's just sick! I mean, what's the frickin' world coming to…? Don't worry, Reggie, I'm not going anywhere… and I'll be ready for anything.'
"Good. I'll call you again in a short while with another update. I think I'll talk to the owner of the 'seventy-seven Pacer Wagon now. He or she might have seen something."
'All right. Bye, Reggie… and mmmmmua!'
Chuckling, Regina sent a couple of kissies back at her sweetheart before she closed the connection and put the phone in her pocket. After glancing around at the people nearest her without appearing to be doing so, she walked off to talk to the next of the victims.
Behind Regina, a person wearing a three-quarter-length, forest-green hunting jacket that looked exceedingly hot in the late-summer sunshine stepped out of the shadows created by a marquee.
The person - whose face was mostly obscured by a baseball cap that had been pulled way down low - held up a digital camera and proceeded to take a few pictures of the vandalized Matador and the seething owner. After checking the quality of the images on the rear of the camera, the person turned around and walked off in the opposite direction of where Regina had gone.
-*-*-*-
The nerve-racking fright of hearing about the appalling acts of vandalism and the rest of the unexpected high drama had soured Stella's mood. Instead of being the happy-happy-joy-joy person she had been for the first part of the trip to the jamboree, the proverbial rain cloud had crossed over her sun. Sitting on the Pacer's passenger-side front seat to be able to stretch her legs a little, she nursed a Slurrpy Classic Cola while observing the many happy people filing past.
One of Lynn Anderson's countless albums played on the eight-track, but even the legendary singer who had to be counted among the biggest stars of 1970's Nashville-style Country & Western failed to make Stella's lips crease into anything even remotely resembling a smile. The song that played at present was a slow country-blues about taking the Midnight Train To Georgia.
Her period denim jacket had been folded up and put onto the driver's seat because it was too hot to wear indoors; her mirror hangers had been flipped down to achieve a modicum of privacy. She reached up to toy with the pale-blue, tree-shaped Alpine Air air-freshener, but even sniffing the delightful scents it let out that were so characteristic of her favorite period - i.e. the Good, Old Days - could not drag her out of her funk.
Now and then, some of the visitors to the AMC Jamboree came to a halt to take a picture or ten of the chocolate-brown vehicle and its two colorful next-door neighbors. Stella kept a close eye on everyone. Nobody appeared to be anything other than a regular fan, and nobody stayed for so long that it became suspicious.
Sighing, Stella opened the glovebox to see if she should have a pack of her number-one comfort food, Oreo Originals, stashed away somewhere in there. She had already gone through the stack of eight-track cartridges and the rest of the contents before she remembered that everything had been cleared out during the restoration. Worse, she had yet to stop at a convenience store to restock. She let out a groan as she clicked the glovebox shut.
Noticing movement to her right, she drew a fast breath and whipped her head around in case she had trouble coming her way. Instead of the mysterious vandal, the elderly woman from the red convertible stood outside, so Stella turned off the music and swiveled the hand-operated crank to roll down the side window.
The seventy-something woman was dressed in a white pleated skirt and a short-sleeved summer blouse that matched the tone of red found on their Rambler American. Her hair had recently been bobbed and she could perhaps be described as heavy-set though far from being overweight - 'Grandmotherly' was the term that sprung to Stella's mind when she saw her.
"Hello, dear," the woman said in a friendly voice, "my husband and I noticed that you have a cooler box in the back, and we were wondering if you had any ketchup we could borrow? We're about to make hot dogs, but we've just discovered our ketchup has gone bad!"
"Ooooh, I hate it when that happens," Stella said and winced in sympathy. "No, I'm sorry… I only have a few cans of soda pop, I'm afraid…"
"Oh… that's too bad. Well, thank you all the same."
"You're welcome," Stella said before the woman walked back to her husband who waited by their picnic table.
After conferring for a moment or two, the owners of the Rambler American looked to some of the other cars nearest their convertible to see if they might have more luck elsewhere. A cooking pot, two cans of non-alcoholic beer, four buns, the same amount of sausages, a small jar of pickled cucumbers and a bottle of sweet mustard were all lined up and ready to go. They were planning to use a portable gas ring that had been hooked up to a small gas cylinder, but as Stella Starr knew all too well, a dog without ketchup may be hot but it could never be a proper hot-dog.
The first smile in far too long made its way onto her lips at the sight. She could not help but wonder if she and Regina would stay together for another three decades. They were already acting like a gently - or not so gently, occasionally, but they always made up - bickering, old married couple so all the building blocks of a life-long love were there. Even beyond that, a seventy-five-year-old Regina Harrison would surely be a sight to see. She hoped they would remain a strongly-knit twosome, but she knew from past experience that life had a nasty tendency to throw curveballs in her face when she least expected one.
One of those curveballs suddenly appeared in front of the Pacer. A group of murmuring, visibly upset and in some cases just plain angry car owners swamped the chocolate-brown wonder. Had it been in earlier and less enlightened times, they would have been carrying pitchforks and flaming torches, but their dark expressions were more than enough to make them appear threatening.
"What in the blippety-blip-blop is going on here?" Stella mumbled as she leaned her head out of the window to shoot a highly puzzled glance at the mob. The first thing she heard made her insides clench: one of the women cried "There she is!"
Understanding that she needed to take the initiative before the proverbial Doom Express would roll off the railroad bridge and crash into the valley far below, she hurriedly put the can of Classic Cola into one of the newly-installed cup holders, got out of the Pacer and flipped open her mirrored hangers. "Uh… hiya. Yep, here I am… so… how can I help you?" she said while the familiar two-foot tall, neon-green question mark hovered in the air above her shaggy haystack.
The woman who had marked Stella out stepped forward to be at the head of the group of aggressive-looking people. In her mid-forties, she appeared to be a regular lady dressed in regular clothing and an AMC Hornet baseball cap who just happened to be the self-appointed spokesperson of a flash mob. "Four of our cars have been vandalized! Yours haven't. You're new here. What do you have to say for yourself?" she said in an angry, accusing tone.
"Whoa… are you- did you just- yes you did! Ex-squeeze-me, Ma'am, but that's just way, way, wayyyyyyyy outta line-"
"Well? And don't give us a runaround."
"I. Beg. Your. Pardon?!" Stella growled, staring daggers at the woman and the rest of the irate owners. Deep inside her, the fuse for her volcanic temper was lit, but she tried to pour crushed ice on it for as long as possible so the situation would not get out of hand. "Yes, this is the first time I've been to the jamboree, but I fail to see what the fricker-fracker that has to do with anything! I guaran-ding-dong-tee ya I had nothing what-so-flippin'-flappin'-ever to do with the vile vandalism… slashing tires and- and- whatnot-"
'How would you know?' a male voice shouted from the back of the group. 'Nobody said nothin' about tires gettin' slashed! She's guilty!'
Stella scrunched up her face and cast a dark, dangerous glare at the people confronting her - her fuse sent out plenty of smoke and sparks that melted all the crushed ice on its merry way to the charge. It all meant that Atomic Stella woke up from her slumber, but the Fighting Fury had yet to get her good-morning mug of steaming hot piggy lard so she was not quite ready to head off to war.
"One… I spoke to one of the volunteers from the American Motors Owners Club. Two… the telephone has been invented, pal!" she said, reaching into her jeans pocket to retrieve her smartphone. "Look, I'm Stella Starr of the blip-bloppin' Harrison-Starr Detective Agency. My business associate Regina Harrison is investigating the vandalism as we speak! She called me to give me the details of the attack on the Matador… oh-noes, how did I know a Matador had been vandalized? I must be guilty!" she mocked as she flailed her arms in the air.
'Damn straight! Let's call the cops!' the same person said from down the back somewhere.
"Damn crooked, pal! Whaddahell is wrong with this scene?!" Stella said and stepped up on the Pacer's doorsill to gain a vital few inches on her opponents. Looking over their heads, she caught a brief glimpse of a person in a forest-green, three-quarter length hunting jacket who loitered on the opposite side of the row. The person's face was obscured by a low-riding baseball cap; when eye-contact was established, the person turned away in a hurry and disappeared into the crowd.
Grunting, Stella turned back to face those nearest her. She drew a deep breath to have enough air: "So far, the entire day has been a fan-flippin'-tastic experience for everyone with cool music and cool cars and cool people and a whole buncha other cool stuff, but now you come here and accuse me of destroying other peoples' cars!" - Deep breath - "I mean, whadda-flipper-flopper, pal?! That's just ten cents shy of being all-out prepos-teri-uss! My heart was in my frickin'-frackin' throat as well when I first heard about the diss-pick-a-bell vandalism!" - Deep breath - "I sprinted back here to make sure my Old Girl was safe, and when I say sprinted, I mean sprinted like the blip-bloppin' moccasin wind across the prairie or whatever-da-frick it's called!" - Deep breath - "I fell down on my knees and thanked all the AMC gods I could think of when I found her still in one piece! And now you accuse me of-"
'I still say she's guilty! We don't know her an' she don't even speak no proper American!'
Stella clammed up and began to scowl. Chirping crickets. More chirping crickets. Even more chirping crickets. Stella scowled harder. An entire forty-strong symphony orchestra of chirping crickets. Stella scowled even harder and sent the obnoxious fellow at the back an Evil Eye. It did not seem to register, and worse, none of the others even tried to counter the man's claims.
In the middle of all that tension, drama and potential mayhem, Regina returned to the site. Pulling down her oversized sunglasses, she stared wide-eyed at the goings-on with an expression that was equal measures disbelief and annoyance. When she locked eyes with her sweetheart, she understood it would only be a matter of moments before Atomic Stella would exit her cave and play Human Ten-Pin Bowling with the mob. "All right, all right… settle down, everybody," she said and put her hands in the air while she shuffled into the group of angry people. "We're the Harrison-Starr-"
'She's the other one!' the fellow at the back shouted. 'I saw her talking to Harry before!'
"You sure did, Sir, and I even have a recording of it on my telephone," Regina said and patted the pocket of her jeans. "Like I was about to say, we're the Harrison-Starr Detective Agency. We're trying to help you solve this heinous crime-"
"And why should we believe you? You're not one of the regulars either," the woman at the front of the angry mob said.
Stella's scowl had turned so deep and dark by now that her face had been reduced to one-third of its regular size. "Save your breath, Reggie," she said in a growl as she moved her rainbow-colored suspenders in-and-out to have something to do with her hands that did not involve laying down the law Stella-style or even dishing out knuckle-sandwiches though she was starkly opposed to physical violence. "These people won't listen no matter what the frickety-frick-frack we tell 'em. I don't be-lieeeeeeeve it… whaddahell is wrong with those-"
Before Regina had time to reply to either the angry woman or Stella - who was an even angrier woman, only for different though obliquely related reasons - further commotion at the back made the two investigators let out identical groans.
The group of irate owners soon scattered to reveal another of the volunteer members of the organizing club who came running into their midst. This time, it was the man in the cowboy hat who had handed over the Pacer's distinction to Stella earlier in the day. "It's happened again!" he cried as he whipped off his Stetson to fan his flushed face. "A spring-green 'seventy-three Gremlin was just vandalized! Somebody smeared brown gunk all over the hood and windshield… it looks like chocolate-spread or mud… or I s'pose it could be poop!"
"Oh, fer-Flipper's-sake!" Stella said and broke out in a squirm.
Regina did one better: instead of merely squirming, she let out a squeak, jerked up and flew back to hide behind Stella's loud batik T-shirt like she expected the man in the cowboy hat to be contagious from simply talking about it. The fact that she did nothing to re-settle her hair that had been shook around from moving so fast proved she had been truly rattled by the surprise utterance of the dreaded P-word.
'I'll bet it's those two!' the man at the back shouted.
The lit fuse inside Stella upped its pace and flew toward the inevitable conclusion. Red blotches appeared on her cheeks. Her lips were pulled back into a sneer. Her heart rate grew exponentially to allow enough adrenaline to surge through her.
Clenching her fists, she sent a long, hard glare over the crowd nearest her before she let rip with a: "Now you lissen here and you lissen good, pal! I'm gonna be realllllllly nice and explain the whole crib-crabbin' thing one final time so we can all understand it… Reggie and me had abso-fricky-fracky-lutely nothin' to do with any of this blip-bloppin' evil bizz'ness! You hear me now, pal? You understand the words that are comin' outta my mouth? You better 'cos I ain't gonna say it again! So there! You, Tex! When did the Gremlin get pooped on?"
"Ew-ew-ew, Stell!" Regina croaked somewhere behind Stella's batik T-shirt.
"Just now! Not five minutes ago!" the volunteer with the cowboy hat said.
Stella let out a deep, throaty growl before she glared back at the angry owners and especially the doubter at the back of the group. "And where was I five minutes ago, pal? I was here, pal. Where were you five minutes ago, pal? You were here as well, ain't that so? See the logic yet…pal?!"
'So you had an accomplice! Big Deal! Hey, that tall woman wasn't here!'
Stella clammed up all over again; the pulse point on the side of her neck hammered away like the drum beat of a Death Metal vinyl album played at the wrong tempo. Her chin and cheeks moved constantly like she was letting out a severe thunderstorm of curses on the inside, and she continued to glare at the people who had swamped her Pacer. "Oy-oy-oy," she finally mumbled, "it's the frickin' Twilight Zone. Yes, we're stuck in the Twilight Zone. Ha. Ha. Ha-ha-ha. HA! Where's the reset button? Stop the world, I wanna get off! How could this awesome day turn so poopy? This is the bingety-bongety weirdest deal I've been in for a long, long while… and that says a lot…"
"Boy, isn't that the truth, Stell…" Regina said in a matching mumble.
Stella drew a deep breath to fire off another volley with her sixty cannons at the stubborn man down the back, but before she could do so, she caught a new glimpse of the person in the three-quarter-length, forest-green hunting jacket and the low-riding baseball cap.
There was something odd about the image, but Stella could not figure out what it was until she happened to notice the hands: they were filthy like the person had just been flinging mud or chocolate-spread - or worse - around. "Well, I'll be a slice o' week-old pizza… hey, Reggie… Reggie, see that dude or dudette down there? In the green jacket-coat-thingie?"
Regina popped her head out from behind Stella's protecting shoulder to look, but not even her six-foot-one frame could look above the heads of a few of the people there. "No… what's up, Stell?"
"Dunno. Yet. But it smells mighty suspicious, that's a fact. Stay here with those nincompoops-"
"No-no-no-no-no-no, Stell! Uggggh! Don't mention p- p- p- that word!" Regina said in a nasal whine that did not become her.
"WHATever. Just stay here. Have your phone ready," Stella said and jumped off the doorsill. Growling to all and sundry to make them clear a path for her, she bulldozed her way through the crowd to intercept the person in the heavy jacket before it was too late - but when she got out into the row, her target had already taken off.
"Oh, ding-dong-darn'it… not again! Tex! You with the hat and the vest!" Stella barked at the man wearing the cowboy hat. "Let's go, the chase is on!" she said, pointing further down the lane they were in.
"Uh… all right," the man said and followed the fiery investigator into the unknown.
---
Stella hoped it would not evolve - or devolve - into another madcap foot chase like the one she had suffered through over at the Bay City Central Station while pursuing the dastardly criminal who had picked the pockets of 'Honest' Louis Hunnicutt's customers, but it very much appeared it would. Although she was not quite running, her legs moved like drumsticks to keep up with the fleeing character who was rarely more than twenty to thirty feet ahead of her.
Her widely flared jeans slowed her down, but running around in her undies was perhaps a less-efficient way of getting somewhere with regards to drawing attention from the crowds, so she kept the jeans on. At least the heavy forest-green jacket stood out like a sore thumb among all the summer-clad people in the rows.
"Oy!" Stella cried at the top of her lungs as she tore along the lane. "Oy! You in the hunting jacket! Oy! Whassa-madda-witcha? Can't you hear me say oy? Stop, will ya! Oy! I just want a word witcha! That ain't so bad, is it? I speak the whooooooooole time an' I've always thought it was kinda funny to do so! Oy, you there!"
Behind Stella, the cowboy-hat-wearing volunteer from the American Motors Owners Club was already down to his last few drops of get-up-and-go juice. Panting and wheezing like Stella's Old Girl had done when it had been scraping along at rock bottom, he was unable to keep up with the younger and fitter woman.
Ultimately, he had to admit defeat. He came to a grinding halt near a baby-blue 1974 Javelin and bumped his wide behind down into a lawn chair that the owner of the sports car had just put up. The chair was a flimsy construction that was meant to be sat in, not bumped down into, so not only did the fabric on the seat tear in two with a loud rrrrrrrip, the rest of the framework collapsed and sent the unfortunate man sprawling onto the ground with a surprised yelp.
The action had taken place behind Stella so she had yet to notice that her official back-up had literally fallen by the wayside. She and the person she chased increased the tempo the whole time until they finally arrived at what was generally known as 'storming along.' She had hoped to avoid it, but now the level had been reached, she did her best to match her opponent every step of the way.
"Oyyyyyyyyyyyy! Will ya stop running fer-Evelyn's-sake! I just wanna have a word witcha!" she cried as she and the person ahead of her turned left, then right, then right again, then left, then right, then left all over again. After that sequence, they went straight on for a short while passing a collection of colorful cars - but they all were so that was no help in establishing their relative location - before another left, then right, then left, then another left and finally a right that went into an ultra-quick left-turn as its sting in the tail.
By now, Stella had no idea where in the world she was except that she was fairly positive they had not left Bay City yet. After a little more running around in a dizzying sequence of turns, the answer to her unspoken question was revealed in embarrassing detail when she burst onto a flat area occupied by a group of men holding amplified guitars and other types of instruments. Whipping her head around to the right, she noticed a colorful sea of people standing below the stage she had entered - every last one of them cheered and began to clap like they thought it was part of the surfer set played by Daddy Kool Wave & The Surfin' Kats.
"Holy can-of-anchovies!" Stella croaked as she continued across the stage and jumped off the other side; she was followed every step of the way by an equilibristic guitar solo and even more clapping and cheering.
Good fortune finally smiled upon the perennially unlucky Stella Starr when the person she was chasing tripped over a curb and landed with a hard thump on the asphalt. The person's forest-green hunting jacket absorbed most, if not all, of the impact, but what appeared to be a gutting knife used on fishing trips flew from it which sent a ripple of unrest through a nearby group of visitors. A bag of something brown - it turned out to be moist coffee grounds rather than mud, chocolate spread or worse - had been split open and began to drift away in the gentle breeze. The person sat up while nursing a sore elbow; then the baseball cap was pulled down even further so the others would be unable to gawk.
"Rod-BANG, I'm gettin' old… don't wanna hurrrrrl…" Stella croaked as she came to a stop in front of the fallen suspected vandal. Panting, she put her hands on her hips to catch her breath. When even that was insufficient to recover the air she needed, she leaned over and rested her hands on the knees of her flared jeans. Her glasses and her mirror-shade hangers had remained on her nose throughout the mad chase, but she needed to take them off to mop up the sweat before she would chafe. "Aw… phew… aw… phew… aw… phew… I can't fathom why every blip-bloppin' crook we cross paths with run away… why can't they just come to their blip-bloppin' senses and give up… for-Flipper's-sake…" she said around a sequence of wheezes - then she pushed her glasses back up her nose to get a better view of the person on the ground.
A moment or two later, she was joined by a handful of security people from the American Motors Owners Club who all wore the characteristic neon-yellow vests. To weed out any confusion - like getting detained for disturbing the peace when she had in fact done her utmost to restore it - she motioned at the alleged vandal while she continued to breathe heavily. "Nice to see ya, fellas… I'm Stella Starr of the Harrison-Starr… Detective Agency. I'm sure you'd like… to talk to the person there… about the blip-bloppin' vandalism, huh? Knock yourselves out… I already am. Dang, I need a Slurrpy or sum'tin," she said as she wiped her damp forehead. "Oh, and ya need to watch out… there's a knife around here somewhere… there it is," she continued, pointing at the three-inch blade that glinted in the sun.
As the security people helped the fallen person upright and slapped a pair of plastic restraints around the wrists on grounds of bringing a dangerous weapon to a family event, Stella moved in to take off the low-riding baseball cap. She let out a grunt when it turned out to be a woman in her early-to-mid twenties. Fairly featureless, the woman had grayish eyes and blond tresses that fell down upon her shoulders now the cap was no longer there to hold everything in place.
"Lady," Stella said in an annoyed tone, "lemme start off by askin' if you're the vandal everyone's been looking for?"
"I suppose I am," the woman said in a tone of voice that could be described as indifferent or even slightly bored.
Stella scrunched up her face as she took in the sight and demeanor of the young woman. "All right. Wouldya mind tellin' me and these nice fellas here what the flying fig leaf you vandalized those poor cars for? Don't you understand how riff-raffin' expensive it is to fix-"
"I inherited a 'seventy-six Pacer, okay? A custom model made for the bi-centennial celebrations and all that shit. My gramps bought it new back then and he left it for me, okay?" the woman said in a screechy voice that offered a hint that she had perhaps lost a marble or two somewhere over the years. "So I know exactly how expensive it is, okay? It's a piece of shit! The fuel system is leaking all over the place! There's a rusty hole the size of my ass in the floor and the windshield is cracked and the exhaust is hanging off it! It's a piece of shit, okay?! When I heard of the distinctions handed out to the nice cars, I wanted everyone else to feel just as miserable as me, okay?!"
"No, it ain't frickin' okay, lady!" Stella barked before she drew a deep breath. "You had a buncha people gettin' majorly worried about their blip-bloppin' cars and that ain't okay! Why I oughtta… I oughtta tell you about- about- about- but I ain't gonna. I ain't gonna," she said, shaking her head. Then she went ahead after all: "The hell I ain't! Lissen here, lady, this Jamboree is a celebration of these proud cars and their proud owners and we sure as stink on you-know-what don't need no sourpuss grinch like you to ruin it for everyone!" - Deep breath - "Your car is a piece of crap… so fix it or get someone to do it for ya! It's gonna cost ya plenty, no doubt about that… and believe me, I know what I'm talking about! But ya can't just-"
"That's easy for you to say! I can't afford to fix it, okay?" the young woman said; she threw her head angrily which made her blond locks fly around.
Stella grunted and slammed her hands onto her hips. "Tell ya what, I don't think you understand what this frickin' insane vandalism is gonna mean for your immediate future, lady!" - Deep breath - "I see a lotta lawyers and insurance companies and those kinds of suit-and-necktie-wearin' people just around the corner for ya, and that sure ain't gonna be nickel and dime stuff either! If you're lucky, you'll only get slapped with a buncha blip-bloppin' lawsuits for what you've done today! Who knows, you might even end up doing jail time for it… the knife and all that crud-"
"Those bozos can go screw themselves! And so can you!"
The young woman's flippant behavior made a large-scale thunderstorm rage inside Stella, and she needed to count to ten - and change - before she could go on: "Yeah. Whatever. You know what, lady?" she said in a calm voice that surprised even herself. "You frickin' deserve every last bit of crap that'll come your way! So there!"
"Don't you ever shut up?" the young woman said, simply making a bored face at Stella's heated tirade.
By now, Atomic Stella jumped up and down to be let out of her reinforced cage, but the real Stella did one better by spinning around on her heel and stomping away before she did anything she would regret. Fifteen striding yards into her lengthy return trip to her Pacer, her telephone started ringing deep down in her pocket. Sighing, she retrieved it and accepted Regina's call. "Hi, Reggie… good news. I caught the so-and-so. You can tell everyone to stop accusing us now."
'Oh! That's great. But Stell, you-'
"Yeah, and get this… it was a woman who owns a crappy Pacer. She didn't want anyone else to be happy when she was miserable. I mean, what the flip?"
'Stell, you need to-'
"Sometimes, I don't understand the human race… I really don't. And I'm not just talking about the Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Pinto theory-"
'Pluto… and it's actually Venus, but never mind… Stell, you need to listen to me-'
"- but the human race in general, Reggie. I mean, why couldn't everyone be more like me? Wouldn't that be wonderful? I think it would."
'Stell-'
"Perhaps it could lead to unfortunate situations from time to time when we converged at Zeligman's and all wanted the last chocolate-frosted donut… oy, that would perhaps be a little too much of a good thing…"
'Stell!'
"Or at the convenience store when we all wanted to get to the cash register first with our packs of Oreos, pretzels and Slurrpies. I guess that could lead to a heated argument now and then."
'Stella!'
"But anyway, I digress. Y'know, Reggie, now that I think about it, I honestly do think that-"
'Stella Starr!' Regina suddenly roared at the other end of the connection, 'You need to get your bee-hind back here at once! The judges have arrived and they need to talk to you about the Old Girl right now or else she's eliminated from the Best Showroom Original competition!'
"Wh- wh- w- whut?! Fricky-frocky-fracky, why diddencha say so before?!" Stella cried. Snapping out of the brief funk she had fallen into after being unwillingly exposed to the frustrating, petulant attitude of the vandal, she whipped her head around to plot the quickest course back to the row where her chocolate-brown wonder was parked.
There was just one, teeny-tiny little problem, and she discovered it after spinning around a couple of times to get her bearings. The row she was in looked identical to the row she had been in before, to the next row and even the next row after that. They all contained plenty of happy people walking around, plenty of colorful cars of all kinds, and plenty of owners who yapped and ate while sitting on lawn chairs. "Reggie!" she said in a croak. "I'm lost! Hellllllllllllllllp! Stall 'em! Tell 'em one of your modeling stories or offer to read their palms or give them a massage or- or- or- something! Anything!"
'Give them a massage?! Really, Stell! Don't you think that's a little too personal?'
"And you gotta… you need to… uh, uh, uh… do something so I can see you! Wave your hands in the air… or something… you need to do something so I can see you!" she cried as she took off at a frantic pace in a direction she hoped was the right one.
'Oh, Stella…' A deep sigh inevitably came through the connection, followed by a few dry chuckles. 'All right… I'll think of something. Just hustle, Stell!'
"I'm hustling! I'm hustling! If I hustled any harder, I'd hustle myself clear out of this dimension and into another one just like in the Planet Of The Apes movie! And I'm talking about the original, not the shallow remake from a couple-a years ago!"
'Stella Starr, what on Earth are you talking abo-"
"Yes, exactly! Aaargh, I can't talk right now! I gotta go!" Stella cried as she tore through one row and into the next one that looked one-hundred percent identical to the old one she had just left behind. She came to a screeching stop and whipped her head around several times - then she took off in an entirely different direction.
A loud, echoing and certainly insistent "Why, why, whyyyyyyyyyyyy does it allllllllways have to be this way?! Why! Why! Why! Does! It! Always! Have! To! Be! This! Way?!" trailed her wildly running frame like a shadow.
-*-*-*-
Back at the Pacer, Regina put her smartphone into her jeans pocket and allowed a wide and sublimely cool smile to fall onto her lips. Sashaying back to the two judges - who were still taking notes while studying the chocolate-brown automobile - she flicked her perfect hair over her perfect shoulder where it landed in a perfect cascade down her perfect tunic-clad back.
At least the mob of angry people had dispersed when the judges had shown up. The obnoxious fellow at the back who had objected to everything Stella and Regina had said had turned out to be a small, gray mouse of a man who looked like an algebra professor on a weekend pass from his burdensome marriage.
The two judges were a man and a woman in their late-fifties. They both wore the typical yellow vests that identified them as volunteers working for the American Motors Owners Club, and they even sported identical sweatsuits underneath - the only difference being that the colors were reversed: black-and-blue for the fellow and blue-and-black for the lady. The man wore a baseball cap that sported the traditional red-white-and-blue AMC logo while the woman wore a shapeless bucket hat not unlike the one Stella used whenever she wanted to torment poor, old Regina.
Both judges shared the same basic facial structure, especially around the eyes, ears and noses, so Regina surmised they were brother and sister. The fellow was a good fifty lbs. heavier than his sibling, but the woman was not one to be swept away in a breeze either.
Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, Regina's hair-flicking gesture worked wonders with regards to grabbing the attention of someone, but all she got out of it this time was a brief glance by the woman. Regina let out an even briefer grunt and began to consider offering them a massage after all - either that or perform a fake palm-reading. "I just spoke to the owner of the Pacer. She's on her way," she said with a smile. "Oh, and I have good news. The vandal has been caught."
"Now that is good news," the female judge said before she returned to her score sheet. Using a red marker, she drew plus-symbols in some boxes and minus-symbols in others. Though the woman performed a thorough inspection of the Pacer's exterior, she worked quickly and efficiently and soon came close to the last few fields on the score sheet. She looked at her wristwatch, then at the other judge who broke out in a shrug.
Regina bared her teeth in a worried grimace - if she fouled up and the judges were to leave before Stella had found her way back, there would be plenty of sleeping on the couch in the days or perhaps even weeks to come. In fact, if Stella was hurt deeply enough by her lack of success, the couch might even turn into a hotel room in a completely different part of Bay City.
"Miss," the male judge said as he folded up his own score sheet and put away a marker similar to his sister's, "I'm afraid we can't wait any longer. Though some of the cars were eliminated through the vandalism, we still need to see three more. It takes a lot of time, so…"
The gears were grinding so hard behind Regina's bright-blue - and desperate - eyes that she nearly had smoke coming out of her ears. Several ideas were thought up, evaluated and discarded before she decided to go for the one thing that always worked: offering a photograph of herself. "I understand, Sir. But before you go, shouldn't we immortalize this special moment by having one of the guests here take a picture of us? I think we should. Perhaps even two… one in front of the car and one by ourselves. That way, you could have something to look back on when you and your grandchildren sit by the fireplace reminiscing!" she said as she zipped behind the two judges.
Putting her arms across their shoulders, she ignored their grumblings while she searched for someone who could take the picture - and for Stella. "After all, it's not often that you get to be in a photo with moi, the unforgettable, the incomparable, the just simply fabulous Regina Harrison! Oh, the stories I could tell you about being the headlining act in fashion shows all over the world… or even having all sorts of very important people photo-bomb my-"
"I'm sorry, Miss," the female judge said, "but we really don't have time. And besides, I have to admit I've never heard of you. Are you someone we should know? Are you an actress or somebody?"
Record-scrrrrrratch!
Regina blinked several times while the proverbial bucket of ice water she had just been exposed to continued to trickle down her entire being. "I'm… I'm… a model," she croaked.
The identical grunts that came from the two judges proved what the siblings thought of models. Fortunately for Regina's peace of mind - and her future sleeping arrangements - the next sound that reached her ears wasn't a growly high-performance V8, a gently burbling straight-six or even a child that squealed after earning, or dropping, an ice cream.
Instead, it was an approaching wall of noise that was a cross between a tornado-warning siren, a foghorn out in the silvery bay, and the roar let out inside the football stadium next door by the supporters of the Bay City Bulldawgs whenever the home team scored a touchdown - in short, it signaled the imminent arrival of Stella Starr.
"Ah!" Regina said and moved away from the judges at once, "here's the owner of the Pacer now. I'll just go over here… and sulk… while you talk to her." Moving out into the clear, she waved for all she was worth so Stella had something to aim at.
Oh-point-eight-three-three of a second later, Stella came to a screeching halt next to her beloved, chocolate-brown Old Girl. Her shaggy mop of hair caught up with her head a heartbeat or two later, but it took several more rapid heartbeats after that before it had settled down enough for her to brush it aside so she could see where she needed to go. "He- he- he- ll- ll- llo- hello, I'm St- St- St- St- Stella St- St- St- Arrrrrrrrr," she croaked in between huffing, puffing, moaning and groaning after what had to have been a two-mile sprint.
In reality, she had only been four rows away from where she had parked her Pacer when she had caught the vandal, but she had taken not one, not two, not three and not even four, but no less than five completely wrong turns on her way back which had sent her on a grand tour of the entire jamboree site. She had revisited the stage at the central area, the porta-potties, the stage once more, a few of the concession stands - that had done their worst to lure her in with their tempting offerings of warm popcorn, fresh coffee and cotton candy by the bucketful; she had stood firm for a change - and had seen cars, cars and more cars everywhere that had all been so similar she could not tell one row from the next.
"Miss Arr," the male judge said as he unfolded his score sheet to go through what he had already written down. "We need you to talk about your Pacer in your own words. How long you've had it, why you bought such a vehicle, et cetera."
Stella shook her head in puzzlement at the unusual way she had been addressed. "I'm sorry, Mista… but my name is… Starr. Stella Starr. Two… esses, two tees… two elles and two arr's," she said between wheezes as she wiped her forehead on the back of her hand.
The male judge looked at his sister and then back at Stella. "Miss Arr… that's exactly what I said," he said while cocking an eyebrow like he did not appreciate being taken for a fool. "Can we please make this snappy? We have a lot of work yet to do today before we can make the results public."
Stella squinted at the judge; then she broke out in a shrug - sometimes, it was better just to roll with the punches even if they were somewhat surreal. Taking a deep breath, she held it for a moment and then let it out in a burst to get her lungs back inside the barn. "Sure. It's a standard AMC Pacer Hatchback from nineteen-seventy-five, the first year they were made… but I'm guessin' you know that already. I bought it a few days after my sixteenth birthday, so I've owned it for more than twenty years now. It was bought third-hand and I believe it cost me six-hundred dollars or thereabouts," Stella said and toyed with her rainbow-colored suspenders.
She fell quiet for a moment as she thought back to the endless brouhaha the car had caused when she had presented it to her parents for the first time. Her mom had loved it for all its 1970s-style quirkiness, but her father had not - and that was putting it mildly.
She had already been at loggerheads with him for a long time, and the fact she had bought such an odd duck of a vehicle only widened the chasm between them. He had even threatened to sell it for its scrap value - apparently no more than $50 at the most - and buy her a car more fitting for his status in society, like a Mazda Miata or a BMW three-series. She had stood her ground and had won that particular fight; the Pacer had been in her possession ever since. The only olive branch he had ever held out with regards to the car had come a few years later when it needed a full respray. He had paid for it when she could not afford to do so, but by then, too many bridges had been burned between them.
"Why did I want a Pacer?" she continued as she returned to the present. "Well, it appealed to me 'cos it was so unusual… so much its own thing. Like me, I s'pose. Because of this and that, I stuck out like a sore thumb in the grossly polished world at my college. Everyone wanted to shove my personality into a tiny shoebox so I would fit in better, but I went in the other direction. You might say I was a rebel in my youth. But never mind that now."
A few sighs followed before she continued: "Uh… it was a different color originally. A sort-of pale-yellow-almost-melon-color that was an eyesore, quite frankly. Even for my standards." - Stella turned around to wink at Regina who responded to it in kind - "It got a new paint job after a few years and it's been chocolate-brown ever since."
"The factory's official term for the color was in fact Brown Coffee, Miss Arr," the female judge said.
"Oh, really? I've always called it chocolate-brown," Stella said and shrugged again.
Standing in the background, Regina could not help herself: "Or another shade of brown altogether…" she mumbled under her breath.
The male judge let out a grunt or two as he checked his score sheet. At one point, he looked at what his sister had written and subsequently edited his own comments. "And what have you done to it since then, Miss Arr?"
"Oh-ho, what haven't we done… we've done everything to it over the years. A ton of stuff was replaced or renewed for this restoration. My mechanic… Billy's his name… a real friendly fella, by the way," Stella said as she slapped her rainbow-colored suspenders against her chest, "had a funny word for it… or maybe it was an argoplym, I dunno-"
"Acronym," Regina said out of the corner of her mouth.
"-but in either case, he called the parts nos… or N-O-S. What's that short for?"
"New Old Stock," the male judge said, "it means they're original and unused spare parts, only produced years ago."
"Ah. Gotcha. Well, that's what was used. The tires are new, of course… uh, as are the seat covers and the wheel sock, but beyond those things… it's pretty much still the original car, only finely fettled and in flippety-floppety-tippety-toppety condition."
"Have you or your mechanic added any performance-related parts to it that were not available for the specific model when it rolled off the assembly line?" the female judge said.
Stella furrowed her brow and scratched her cheek. "Well, no… I don't think so. Does a RoarMaster muffler count? I believe Billy said it was period-correct…"
"It depends, Miss Arr," the male judge said. "We need to hear the exhaust note to know for sure. Would you mind starting it up? We also need to look into the engine bay."
"I'm on it like a rash!" Stella said and zipped around the Pacer. After sliding onto the brown seat cover, she pulled the lever for the hood for the umpteenth time that day - then she twisted the ignition key. Although the throaty, burbling hum that escaped the stainless steel tailpipe soothed her frazzled nerves, it also added a new layer of uncertainty to the situation.
The judges briefly looked at each other before they both updated their score sheets. Moving their noses down close to the engine and the various mechanical parts, doodads, thingamajigs and beebobs, they carried out a thorough inspection that only made Stella more and more nervous for each passing moment.
Regina strolled over to her sweetheart to put a pair of calming hands on the jittery shoulders. "I have a hunch that everything's gonna be fine, Stell," she said for Stella's ears only.
"Sweet Mother of Pizza, I hope you're right," Stella mumbled back.
---
Two minutes became four, then six, then eight. The engine had already been turned off by then so they could avoid sending clouds of the noxious exhaust fumes over everything, but it took the judges another minute or so before they signaled Stella that she could close the hood if she wished.
The female judge made a quick calculation that she transferred onto a piece of paper; it was soon given to Stella before the two judges said "Good afternoon, Miss Arr," and moved away from the Pacer - they were on their way to the next car that needed to be evaluated for the Best Showroom Original trophy.
"Hoooooly can-of-finely-plucked-tuna-in-sunflower-oil, that took ten years off my life right there!" Stella croaked as she unfolded the piece of paper to look at what had been written about her Old Girl. The comments were for the most part technical mumbo-jumbo that meant little to her - she would have to ask Billy to translate it into English for her once they got back home - but the combined score of 'eighty-six' caught her eye. "Eighty-six, Reggie… is that good or bad?"
"How would I know?" Regina said as she placed her chin on her sweetheart's shoulder. The two women snickered at each other before Stella squirmed away because of the tickling sensation the chin had created. "Is it out of a hundred? Two hundred? Five hundr-" she continued.
"All right, all right… hold yer horses, pal. I'm hoping it's out of a hundred. Or else I'm gonna get realllllllly upset," Stella said and refolded the paper. Instead of stuffing it into her jeans pocket where it would inevitably end up as a crumpled mess, she reached in through the open window in the passenger-side door and opened the glovebox. Once the score sheet was safe and sound next to the eight-track cartridges, she shut the lid once more and pulled back out.
"Now all we gotta do is wait… aw, crud. I hate waiting. Hate it, hate it, hate it… hate it with a frickety-frick-frackin' passion," she said in a mumble.
"All good things come to those who can wait," Regina said and leaned down to place a nice, little kiss on Stella's lips - it made the mop-topped investigator break out in a nervous smile and lean into her sweetheart's touch.