Bridget had parked in front of a property consisting of two structures: an unusually sizable two-story bungalow featuring a widely bracketed gable roof with multi-windowed dormers and a deep front porch supported by stone columns; and next to it, a massive Quonset hut with a large roll-up door above which a sign announced BUTCH HAMMER’S AMERICAN AUTO REPAIR. Between the buildings stood a tall flagpole with an up light that shone on an American flag that stirred with silent sinuosity in the soft breeze.
On the blacktop in front of the repair garage stood an older model Ford Explorer. In the front window was a FOR SALE sign.
It was 10:33, twenty-three minutes after we had set out on our quest.
“I have a good feeling about this,” Bridget said.
“Well,” I had to admit, “so far it doesn’t appear to be a bomb factory.”
We got out of the Buick. Carrying the plastic container that was packed full of cash, Bridget headed not toward the repair garage but toward the residence with such brisk intention that she was obviously guided by psychic magnetism. I began to feel it as well.
Thin draperies were closed over the downstairs windows. Soft light passed through them and shone brighter along the edges. The porch light revealed that the house was painted a pale blue with white trim; it appeared to be meticulously maintained. Above the door, a transom window of red, gold, and blue stained glass invoked divine protection with the words “God bless our home.”
By now, it was clear that the Rainkings had little patience for negative thinking. Because I devotedly wished to accept and see to fulfillment the proposal of marriage to Bridget that I received from her grandfather, I refrained from expressing the thought that the residents of this house were unlikely to cooperate in the kind of shady deal she had in mind. With a budget of seventy-five thousand to purchase a vehicle worth a fraction of that, she clearly wanted an off-market sale for which no papers would be filed with either the tax authorities or the department of motor vehicles. People who sought God’s protection of their home might expect that, in return for granting it, the Big Guy would be aware if criminal activity occurred within those walls, whereupon He would be rightly expected to revoke what they had invoked, and set upon them plagues of frogs and locusts, the divine equivalent of an eviction notice. However, with the hope of wedded bliss and a life of sanctified hanky-panky, I kept my mouth shut.
“Leave the talking to me,” Bridget said as she pressed the doorbell button.
“Absolutely,” I agreed.
The guy who answered the bell filled the open doorway from jamb to jamb and threshold to lintel. He must have been six feet five, at least two hundred sixty or seventy pounds, with the broad chest of a grizzly bear, the shoulders of an ox, and a neck thicker than the neck of any creature that Nature had otherwise ever produced. He was about fifty, with a shaved head, eyes as fiercely blue as a natural-gas explosion, and a thick salt-and-pepper mustache. His arms were so powerful that they would have made a young Arnold Schwarzenegger tremble with respect, his hands so big that he might have been able to strangle me with just a thumb and forefinger. He wore black engineer boots, blue jeans, and a black T-shirt emblazoned with a single word in white block letters—DON’T.
Bridget said, “Mr. Butch Hammer, I presume?”
His teeth were as white and even as piano keys when he smiled and said, “Yes, ma’am. And to whom might I be speaking on this fine May evening?”
I expected her to invent new identities for us, but she said, “I’m Bridget Rainking. This is Quinn Quicksilver, an orphan who never knew the parents who saddled him with that name. Quinn is my fiancé, although there isn’t a ring yet. We’re interested in the Ford Explorer you want to sell, but we have an unconventional offer to make.”
He regarded her, smiling and nodding. Then he looked at me and seemed to decide that, if it became necessary, he could tear my head off without straining himself. “Come on in, and let’s bargain.”
|?17?|
The living room was anchored by a contemporary Persian carpet with an intricate pattern in jewel tones. The simple but elegant craftsman-style furniture of dark wood was like what would have graced a house designed by Greene and Greene a century earlier, the upholstery in frosted-blue and dark-gold fabrics. Three stained-glass lamps were aglow, two in a wisteria motif, the third depicting roses and ribbons. Reprints of Maxfield Parrish paintings added the artist’s magic to the room, and on the wall behind the sofa hung a gallery of photographs, twelve in all, two portraits each of three young men and three young women.