Grizzle made the rest of the trip without complaint, though the temperature gauge did creep up slightly. 

The first thing Lexi learned from the Road Associates was that the bar called the Minilite didn’t exist.  She followed the directions, and they led her to a ratty looking party store in the middle of Nowhere, Missouri.  She assumed she was in the right place because of the hardware in the parking lot.  There were two Porsche 356 coupes that perhaps ought not to have been out in the salt but were cheerfully dirty nonetheless.  She noticed a Taurus SHO sports sedan, a nice Audi 5000 wagon and a BMW M3 sports coupe among the group as well.  Professional-grade hardware all, but nothing particularly exotic.  There was a Volkswagen Rabbit pickup nearby too.  She wasn’t certain that it was related–but then saw it had New Jersey plates and oversized wheels from a sportier, newer Volkswagen, so she guessed that it was.  All seemed to be in good condition, but none of them was particularly clean except for a bright yellow Chevrolet Suburban, which looked out of place among the sports cars.  The air was cool but clear, and a group of men standing clustered near the cars perked up at her approach.  She recognized Glen Grant, the only of the Roadies whom she’d met.

Glen broke away from the group and came to her window.  “You made it,” he said.

“Am I in the right place?  The bar–”

“Exists in our hearts,” he said with a melodramatic grin, laying a theatrical hand over his chest.  “Whenever we say to meet at the Minilite, we just follow the directions till we get where they lead.”

“Who writes them?”

“Harold, usually,” he said, indicating a fiftysomething man sitting in the open tailgate of the yellow Suburban.

“Am I early?”

“No, you’re just in time.  Do you know you’re leaking coolant?”

She’d had time to think about an explanation for Grizzle’s body damage.  “There was a deer,” she said, and didn’t elaborate.  She hadn’t been by herself with a large group of strangers since Ren’s death, and she suddenly didn’t want to meet any of them.  She needed something to hide behind, something to take the attention off of her, especially now that they were all looking.  Was she dressed right?  Was she smiling enough?  Was she good enough?  They were going to be disappointed, she knew it.

Lexi let Grizzle take the brunt of the attention.  Out of habit, she connected the Road Associates with their cars.  She could meet their cars, that was perfectly fine, and she’d get to know the owners later, perhaps.  Glen was the easiest to speak to, since she’d met him already.  He was an automotive journalist, and had been along for part of the ride when she’d driven to New York.  He was an inch taller than she was, about five-eight, and had a cheerful knit cap pulled down over his prematurely balding head.  His mustache had grown bushy since she’d seen him last, and he had a roundish head so it gave him a terminally jolly look.

“You didn’t drive your Healey,” Lexi said.  She knew Glen had a little British sports car, but not what else he drove. 

“It’s put away for the winter,” he said.  “We Michiganders don’t have the luxury of driving our toys year-round like these crazy Porsche guys from Texas and California.  Let me introduce you to Dick Sheehan and Jim Grayson, the Porsche 356 twins.  Gary’s got a 911, but he couldn’t make it so you’ll have to meet him another time.”  Dick was in his mid-thirties and solidly built, with a barrel chest and a physique that seemed built for vigorous activity.  His red hair and freckled face and hands suggested that he’d turn lobster-red after ten minutes in the sun. 

“Is yours the red A or the cream B?” Lexi asked, referring to the cars’ model designations.  Dick had a firm, workman’s hand handshake and a toothy grin.

“Red,” he replied.  “And it’s a Carrera 2,” he added.  “My day job is just a cover for my secret identity as a man who restores and races vintage Porsches.”

“And Volkswagens,” Glen added.  “And NSUs, and DKWs any other weird German cars that find their way into your hands.”

“Neat,” Lexi said.  “Do you have a superhero name?  You should.  Most superheroes couldn’t drive an old race car as far as you just did.  Can you imagine?  Batman would be lying by the side of the road in the fetal position by now.  Crying.”

Dick and Glen both laughed.  “That’s a priceless image.  It’s nice to meet you, Lexi.”  He seemed like he wanted to say something else, but stepped aside so Glen could introduce her to the other Porsche driver.

“Jim owns a race shop in Houston, called Excessive Fours.  They specialize in violently turbocharged and supercharged Hondas and Volkswagens.”

“We just finished a VR6 conversion into a Scirocco,” he said.

Lexi’s smile felt fake.  Should she smile all the time?  It was too late to stop now–if she suddenly stopped, they’d think she had taken a dislike to someone.  “Fun.”  Hearing about cars she couldn’t see (even if someone had put a cool new engine into a cool old car) was always less interesting than the vehicles that were at hand.  “Did you have anything to do with the Rabbit pickup?” she asked, pointing at it.

“No, that one’s all Ray Tully’s,” he replied.  Glances from Glen and Dick told Lexi that Ray Tully was the short man with the chest-length salt-and-pepper beard who was currently squatting and looking under Grizzle.  Ray wore an insulated coverall and was almost as wide as his five-foot two inch height, so he resembled nothing so much as a fantasy-movie dwarf.  “He dropped a GTI motor and suspension in there.”

“It’s just a parts schlepper,” Ray said.  He knelt in front of the truck, then slid partway underneath.  “You crimped the lower rad hose inlet,” he said.  “Gonna have to fix that before we drive.”

“We’re driving?” Lexi asked, realizing it was a dumb question even as it came out of her mouth.

“It’s what we do,” Dick said.

“That’s because you know how to live.  So who belongs to the Suburban?” she asked.  It was a relief that she didn’t have the only truck in the group.  Chasing a bunch of performance cars all day wouldn’t have been much fun.  Well, actually maybe it would have.

“That’s Harold’s,” Glen replied, indicating one of the three older men who had only approached as closely as Grizzle’s tailgate.

“Who is he and where is he from?” Lexi asked.  She reached into the truck’s broken grille and popped the hood.  Dick stepped in and lifted it, pulling a penlight out of his pocket to inspect the radiator.

“If it’s all right,” he said, catching her glance.  She nodded, thinking she ought to help but not wanting to turn her back on the question she’d just asked.  The urge to run screaming surfaced briefly.  She didn’t have to do this, she could just go home and hide and never come out again, and the people who mattered would come to see her there.

No, that wouldn’t do.  She walked with Glen to meet the last three Road Associates.  “Harold Farrington is from Chicago,” Glen said.  “His car is put away, like mine, so he’s driving his tow vehicle, just like I am.”

Lexi shook Harold’s hand as he talked over her shoulder.  “Two questions, Mr. Glen.  One, what’s wrong with driving a truck even when it’s not towing anything, and two, what the hell do you tow with that Audi?”

“It pulls a small racer just fine.  And it’s more fun to drive than a truck.”

“Says you,” Lexi retorted, which made Harold and the other two laugh.  Where Harold had a full head a white hair and a comfortably plump build, the other two men looked like they’d lived hard lives.

“She’s got some spunk,” said the shorter of the two.  “Charlie Spennato,” he said, introducing himself with a handshake and touching Lexi’s elbow.  Charlie was slight, with a seamed, cadaverous face, thin white hair and bright, mischievous blue eyes. 

“Where are you from, and what did you drive here?”

“She gets right to the important stuff, doesn’t she Harold?  I’m in the SHO Taurus there, and I drove up from Tucson,” he said.  “And I’m a Gemini, and I like sunsets, tequila and long walks on the beach.  How about you?”

“I’m a Taurus,” Lexi said, “and I like fruit juice, neon, and movies about zombies.”

“If you do windows, we’ll get along just fine,” Charlie said.

The last Associate punched his shoulder lightly.  “Behave yourself, Spennato,” he said, his voice pure mesquite-smoked Texas.  “You’re talking to a lady.”

Charlie made a show of looking Lexi up and down and arched an eyebrow at her boots, bomber jacket (which was similar to his, except hers was black, his brown) and gray urban camouflage pants.  “Am I, now?  She dresses like my grandson.”

“Don’t mind him, he spent too much time in New York City as a child.  Roger Ellison,” the Texan said.  He had as much Texas in his appearance as in his voice, as his face was seamed and permanently tanned with years of sun.  Roger’s black hair was shot through with gray, but with his faded jeans and rattlesnake-proof boots, he might as well have been wearing a Stetson to top off his outfit.  “And, before you ask, I’m driving that little BMW there, and I’m from Plano.  Charlie here sold Jaguars and MGs in Dallas back in 1960, so you’ve got to understand that he’s still learning how to talk to human beings.”

“That’s a laugh, coming from a guy who spent his youth out in the desert racin’ tumbleweeds,” Charlie shot back. 

Roger didn’t rise to the bait.  “This is a nice box,” he said, indicating Grizzle’s custom bed.  “The rack is fabbed in real nice, good strong stuff.  Probably gonna outlast the cab.  What did you use, quarter-inch steel?”

“It was my father Bert’s truck, and he did the work,” Lexi said, instantly comfortable.  “I helped a little bit, but I never had his patience, so my welding kind of sucks.  It doesn’t break, but it’s not pretty.  The floor and hardpoints are diamond-plate.  And he boxed in the bumper, to protect the trailer wiring.”

Roger and Glen both squatted to look at Grizzle’s sturdy rear bumper.  “What are the taillights from?” Glen asked.

“A Chevy Monza coupe.  We went to the junkyard together and he let me pick them.”  The memory made her smile.

“Right, now I see it.  This lip of metal threw me off.  That’s a nice touch though, protects the lens.”

“Clever guy, your dad,” Roger said.

“Sort of.  It’s a bitch to change the bulbs.  It takes slender fingers.  Guess what I got to do a lot as a teenager?”

“The truck has been in the family since it was new,” Glen explained to Charlie and Roger. 

“When did he weld up that bed?” Roger asked.

“The original one rusted through when I was in ninth grade, and Bert started the new one that summer.  So, ’86 or so.  I learned to drive in it while the bed was off.  He was always talking about making a matching bumper for the front, but didn’t get around to it before he passed away.”  A thought flashed through her head that if Grizzle had gotten a big tough front bumper, she’d have done a lot more damage to Danny Packard’s car and probably not lost her radiator.  Maybe she should make her own.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Roger said.  Charlie nodded sympathetically.  “Aw, no, did you let Ray and Dick get up under the hood already?”

“They’re looking at the radiator,” Lexi said.  “And I ought to be helping.”  She went back to the front of the truck.  Charlie and Roger followed; Glen stopped halfway there to talk to Jim.  Dick and Ray were in the process of removing the radiator; two well-stocked toolboxes had appeared on the ground in front of the truck and a pan had already been procured to catch the coolant they’d drained.

“You’re gutting Grizzle?”

“I’m going to drain the radiator and put some JB Weld on this crack,” Ray said.  “Might be able to bend it back into shape a bit, too.  It should hold fluid after that.”

“With some wire we can get a headlight hung in here, too,” Dick said, indicating the crunched fender.  “It won’t be pretty, but it’ll get you home.”

Lexi looked where he was pointing and nodded.  “I’ll start pulling the harness around,” she said.  “It’ll be easier to pull the fender off when I get home.”  She looked at the damage again, and sighed.  “Oh, well.  I was going to replace it anyway, right?”

“A woman after my own heart,” Dick said.

“Okay, I’m not going to attach any special significance to this, but I can’t help but notice that our first female nominee got into a wreck on the way to the Bar,” Charlie said. 

Roger was about to admonish him, but Lexi stood up for herself.  “That’s okay,” she said, climbing up on the fender so she could reach the wire she had to unplug.  “The deer that caused the accident was obviously a guy.  He couldn’t get out of the way because his balls were too big,” she added.

For a moment she worried that she’d made an enemy, but Charlie laughed along with the others; he could take as good as he gave.  “All right, Little Miss Zombie Movies, score one for you.  So where are we going for lunch, all?”

“I was just discussing that with Harold,” Roger said.  “He knows a great pizza place in St. Louis, and I know a fun little state highway that’ll get us there in five hours or so, if we hustle.  How long is the radiator going to take?”

“Twenty minutes,” Dick said, and Ray grunted in agreement.

“Thank you for doing this,” Lexi told them.

“Nothing I wouldn’t do anyway,” Ray said.  He seemed to be blushing.

“Anyway, you’ll get your turn.  Anyone want to take a bet as to whether we’ll be fixing my car before we get to St. Louis, or Jim’s?”

“Who’s going to be fixing what?” Charlie asked.  “I’ll keep the light on for you when I get there.”  His tone suggested that he was kidding, and would pitch in just as readily as any of them. 

“I’ll take some of that action,” Glen said.  “Did you ever get that clutch taken care of?”

“It’s got a whole new transmission since Road Atlanta,” Dick said.

Lexi helped Dick and Ray repair Grizzle’s headlight and radiator, and got donuts and coffee from the gas station as a reward for them.  By the time the group took to the road, caravanning behind Harold’s Suburban, she was glad to be back alone with her truck.  She liked everyone well enough–except maybe Charlie, who was stuck in the 1940s–but the stress of being around new people was beginning to make her second-guess herself.  Should she have gone to Ile du Soleil instead?  What would Ren have wanted her to do?  And that was a stupid thought, not just because he was gone but because he wouldn’t have made her choose.  Dobie had made her choose, and now she was wondering if she’d chosen right, and on the verge of hating him for forcing her to make the decision.

Stop it, she thought, trying to lose herself in driving.  It was engaging enough, working to hustle Grizzle through the corners with enough speed to keep the Audi and BMW behind entertained but not so much that she’d end up losing the light rear end on an unexpected patch of ice.  The old Ford truck behaved itself, though, and when Jim’s Porsche ultimately did break down about an hour out of St. Louis, Charlie piped up and suggested that they use Grizzle to tow it, to a chorus of chuckles.

Lexi wanted to pitch in and help with the Porsche, but its owner made it clear that he had everything well in hand.  “The rest of you drive on ahead,” Jim said.  “I’ll get her taken care of, and meet you.” 

“You sure you don’t want one of the trucks to stay behind?” Harold asked.

“If I can’t change a wheel bearing by the side of the road in thirty-degree weather, I will have to commit suicide right here,” Jim said.  “There is no honor in being towed.”

“Ain’t no frostbite in it, either,” Roger pointed out.

“I’ll stay with him,” Charlie said.  He patted Jim’s shoulder.  “I’ll be in the car with the heat on.  You need a hand, don’t hesitate to call a tow truck, and don’t wake me up,” he joked.  The caravan continued, one Porsche 356 and one Taurus SHO lighter. 

When they reached the appointed dinner place, a pizza parlor that shared its parking lot with a Red Roof Inn, the sun had vanished beyond the horizon, but Lexi insisted on taking the time to meet each of the Road Associates’ cars before going in.  She hadn’t done it at the gas station, but now that she’d traveled with them, she wanted closer looks at them all.  It was also a convenient buffer because she didn’t feel up to conversation yet.  She had caught meaningful looks from Harold and Ray both, and could tell that they wanted to ask about Crane-Packard but didn’t want to bring it up for some reason.  Which was just as well, since she didn’t want to talk about it.

The other men went inside; Glen stayed out with her while she walked slowly around Ray’s Rabbit pickup, unaware of the smile that had spread across her face as she inspected the little custom truck.

“I think they like you,” Glen said.

“Is that good?  I’ve lost the ability to socialize, I can’t tell.  I feel like an idiot and I keep wanting to apologize for not being as fluffy as I usually am.  I’m just…there’s a lot on my mind.  I don’t know if I can explain exactly.”

Glen wanted to tell her that he suspected being around a bunch of car people had yanked Ren into her thoughts, and she was missing him even if she didn’t realize it, but refrained from presuming.  “Don’t worry about it,” he said.  “Just be yourself.  That’s all we ever do.  We’re used to gearheads who like cars better than people–look at Ray, after all.  Roger and Dick get the same way sometimes.  We’re okay with it.”

“Doesn’t make much of a first impression,” Lexi said, squatting next to Ray’s pickup.  The front bumper had been removed and replaced with a thinner unit that she recognized as having come from a European Volkswagen.  “Have you talked to Molly?”

“A few times,” he said, instantly fidgety.  “We email a lot.”

“Good.”  Lexi wasn’t in the mood to hassle him, and the urge to play matchmaker was getting buried under her own insecurities anyway.  She stood up and blew out a cloud of breath.  “So, I haven’t disappointed everyone, then?  I was wondering if I should scramble to borrow some exotic iron to show up in, instead of Grizzle.”

“Glad that you didn’t,” Glen replied.  “It’s not about having the coolest car.  It’s about loving the one you have.”

“That’s easy to say, coming from someone who’s got a nice collection going already.  Not that I don’t love my truck dearly, but it’s getting to be spring, and I’m going to feel the urge for a sportycar soon.  I may do something rash with my meager cash flow.”

“You’re welcome to borrow my Austin any time you want,” Glen said.  The way he said it suggested that this was not an offer he made lightly.

She cooed at him and gave him a shoulder bump to let him know she understood.  “That’s super-sweet, and I’m going to hold you to it.  But it’s not the same when it’s not yours.”

“I understand completely,” Glen said.  “Shall we?” he asked, indicating the restaurant.

“No better time than the present.”

They found the rest of the group at a table with a pitcher of beer and breadsticks.  “Pizza’s on the way,” Roger said as Lexi found a seat next to Harold, who had saved it for her.  “And there’s a salad bar for the old farts like me who can’t take the grease.”

Dick was halfway through a story, the rest of the group listening raptly.  “So he’s driven this big Chevy pickup all the way down from Colorado, with the snowplow still attached.  Now, we’re almost to San Antonio, and nobody has any idea what to make of this pickup with a giant shovel on the front of it.  I mean, every cop and good ol’ boy we pass is just turning and staring, and you can practically see every one of them mouthing the words, ‘whut the hell?’

“We’re out in the hill country somewhere, coming up through Johnson City, and the road is a big four-lane with a forested slope on one side and a pretty big drop-off on the other.”  Dick’s hands sketched out the topography he was describing in the air.  “We come around this bend, and there’s a cop in the right lane–there’s no shoulder–helping someone who’s got a flat tire, and there’s a car coming from the opposite direction, and there’s a Lexus behind us.  That’s when two deer come bounding out into the road, side by side.  Gary has nowhere to go, and we just slam full-on into them at sixty.”

“Gary’s another Road Associate,” Glen told Lexi.  “He, Terry and Art couldn’t make it today.”  She nodded.

“Now, the snowplow’s raised up, but it’s got hydraulics that allow it to tilt forward and back,” Dick said, tenting his fingers to demonstrate.  “So the first deer’s weight tilts the top edge back, and flips both of them right over the top of the truck.  Ba-bam!  I saw antlers, then hooves spinning around like a rotisserie, and then they were gone.”  The rest of the Associates were already in various states of hysterics, but Dick pressed his comic advantage.  “The first one goes up in the air at least twenty feet, and comes straight down on the hood of the Lexus behind us.  It looked like fur-covered torpedo bomb.  Trashes his hood, goes sliding up over the windshield and takes that out, and God knows what it did to the sunroof.  The second one flips up under the first one, gets about half as much air, and lands right in the bed of our pickup.

“Gary doesn’t even stop.  He rolls that unlit stogie he always has from one side of his mouth to the other and says, ‘Stupid sumbitch,’ and keeps going.”  A fresh round of laughter went around the table.  “About two miles later, the cop catches up to us and pulls us over.  He didn’t give us a ticket.  He just kept saying, ‘I never seen anything like that before!  Goddamn, I never seen anything like that before!’”

“You and Gary shouldn’t be allowed out without supervision,” Harold said between chuckles.  

“Hey, I’m not the one who got it mounted and put it up in the garage, am I?”

“How about you, Lexi?” he asked with a paternal knee-pat so casual that she wasn’t sure he was aware that he’d done it.  “Did your deer today manage a triple axel?”

“It got good height,” she replied, automatically tumbling into an Olympic sportscaster’s voice, “but he didn’t stick the landing.  That’s going to cost him the bronze, Doug.  It’s always disappointing to see a young athlete make a mistake like that when it matters so much.”  This time the laughter was for Lexi. 

“Are you drinking?” Ray asked, indicating the beer.  “We’ve got rooms blocked out at the hotel.”

“Beer makes me stupid,” Lexi said, declining.  “Besides, I may just have to try and drive home.  I didn’t budget for a hotel room.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Roger said.  “Arguing over the bill takes all the fun out of dinner.  It all balances out in the end.”

“You could maybe build each of us a Crane-Packard,” Ray added jokingly.

“I don’t know if the DMV would like that,” she said.  “I suspect they weren’t too happy about what I did with the last one.”

“Now that’s a story I’d like to hear,” Roger said.  “Glen told us some of it, but he don’t never get anything half right.  It sounds like a wilder ride than La Carerra.”

“And you would know,” Harold added.

“You raced in La Carrera Panamericana?” Lexi said, perking up.  The famous, early 1950s seat-of-the-pants race run on public roads in Mexico was one she had always loved to read about.  It made her feel as though she’d been born too late and missed all the fun.

“52, ’53 and ’54,” Roger said.  “Me and Squeezer Mackenzie took turns wrestling a ’49 Oldsmobile through the desert.”  He glanced over her shoulder, and she looked to see that Charlie and Jim had arrived.

Lexi rolled her eyes in delight, imagining Roger forty years younger, his hair plastered with dust.  “That’s so cool,” she said.  “But I’m going to have to swap stories about New York later.  It was kind of personal, and I’ve got other stuff on my mind.  Did I mention that I passed up a free trip to Ile du Soleil to be here?”  She heard it coming out of her mouth before she’d really decided that she wanted to talk about it, but it was too late now. 

Thankfully, the mention of the island nation immediately spun the conversation in a new direction.  “Now that is a fun, fun place,” Charlie said, pulling out a chair for himself.  Roger pushed the rapidly diminishing pitcher of beer toward him, and he poured himself a cup.  “Any of you ever been?  All kinds of terrain, beautiful roads, mountains and salt desert.  And no national highway patrol.”

“No cops?” Ray asked.  “How the hell’s that possible?”

“Small government,” Harold said.  “They have a federal law enforcement division, and local PD, but since there aren’t speed limits outside the major cities, there’s not much reason to patrol ‘em.”

“It’s like a great big tropical Montana,” Dick said.  “Sign me up.”

“Well, it’s not as simple as that,” Charlie said. “They handle the roads the Libertarian way.  There aren’t any cops to hassle you, but that means there’s no one to come help if you crash and burn in the middle of fuck-all, either.  Pardon my French.  You run off the road, you’re on your own.  It’s pure Wild West down there, once you get outside the tourist traps.”

“Well, that’s no surprise,” Dick said.  “They change politics so frequently that I imagine the people who live there have trouble keeping up.”

“What do you expect from a place that was a bunch of uninhabitable salt flats?  Wasn’t any use to anyone until man invented the airplane and we built an airbase there in World War Two.  And then they never used the damn thing.  Do you know how the guy who called himself the king of that place got his throne?” Charlie asked, looking to Glen and Lexi with a challenge in his eyes.  She could tell that he knew the answer, and for some reason assumed that the youngest Road Associates didn’t.

She knew, and didn’t wait to see if Glen did.  “He was related to the pirates who crash-landed there and starved to death a couple hundred years before,” she said.  “So he showed up, called himself King Khorbin, and said the place was his.  And nobody argued, since it was the Fifties and he wasn’t a Communist.”

Harold nodded.  “He was a crazy old bastard.”

“But he made his own country.  Got people down there and turned it into a tourist destination.  Ile du Soleil’s a pretty big place, and it’s got no industry to speak of, except for some phosphate mining.  It’s all tourism.”

“Wrong,” Charlie said, wagging a finger at Glen.  “It’s all money.  During the Cold War, Khorbin liked to remind the boys on Wall Street that Ile du Soleil wasn’t going to be a target for anyone’s nukes and thus made a good place to stash all the things you might not want to have blown up.  It’s the Switzerland of the South Pacific.  Lots of money goes through Solei.  Crime, too.  No telling how many mob connections old King Khorbin had when they finally threw him out.  This was before you were born,” he added, nodding toward Lexi.

“No, it wasn’t,” she said, letting a bit of her annoyance show.  She didn’t want to be treated like the child of the group, even if she was the youngest.  “It was in the late Seventies, and I vaguely remember it happening.”

“What’s always struck me as being ass-backwards,” Roger said, “is that the conservatives in Ile du Soleil would be considered liberals in the U.S., and vice versa.  When I read the news coming out of that place, I can’t tell who stands for what.”

“Too complicated for you?” Charlie asked, sounding only slightly condescending. 

Roger was used to being razzed by his old friend, and let it go.  “Like right now, you’ve got a party ascending in power that the Solei news calls ‘liberal.’  Except that they’re talkin’ about censorship, and stricter government controls over almost everything.  That ain’t what we call liberal.”

“In case you noticed, they ain’t here,” Charlie said.  “Not everyone plays by Texan rules.”

“World would be a better place if they did,” was the reply.

“Why does it seem like every five or six years someone changes the whole system of government in Ile du Soleil?” Ray asked suddenly.  Lexi looked at him, surprised.  He hadn’t seemed to be paying attention to any conversation that didn’t directly involve cars.  “After they booted Khorbin, seems like there’s been a new bunch in charge every time you turn around.”

“Think of it as a grand tradition of shaking the cage,” Harold said. 

“It’s about time for it to happen again,” Charlie said.  “The ‘liberals’ have been getting more and more of a foothold in parliament in recent years.  The Old Guard is moving slowly out, and the Republican and Socialist parties are fragmented among other issues.”

“Who’s the Old Guard?” Lexi asked.

“Mostly Khorbin loyalists.”

“Why are so many people still loyal to him?” Glen asked.  “The last ten years or so of his life were terrible to the Solei people.”

Charlie shrugged.  “Depends on your point of view.”  He killed his beer and signaled the waitress to bring a new pitcher.

“Glen has a point,” Dick said, turning to Charlie.  “The people who thought Reaganomics was such a great thing in the Eighties clearly didn’t remember what was going on in Ile du Soleil fifteen years before.”

“Reagan also never killed anyone,” Glen added.

“King Khorbin never killed anyone, either.”

“Well, sure,” Glen said.  “Henry Ford never beat up any union organizers–Harry Bennett did.  Same difference.  Even if Khorbin never got his hands dirty, he was the one calling the shots.”

“No pun intended,” Lexi said, biting her lip to kill a giggle. 

Only Dick heard her, and gave her a grin before continuing.  “Which brings us back precisely to my concern with these ‘liberals.’  They call themselves a Green party, but that’s a misnomer.  They’re loudly anti-Khorbin, but they’re not that much different than he was.  You’d have to be in Ile du Soleil to understand, I guess, but on home ground it’s pretty well understood that the Greens are just as violent and subversive as King Khorbin allegedly was.  The difference is that they haven’t got a leader whose face can be put on a placard and waved around.  Their repressive political agendas are backed up by social ones as well.”  Dick turned to Lexi.  “Since we are who we are, I think the most important thing is that they’re introducing anti-pollution legislation.  Radical crusher bills.”

“I’ve heard of that,” Glen said.  “They want to make it prohibitively expensive to own a car that’s more than five years old, isn’t that the case?”

“Exactly.  And they’re backing it up by pushing bills to order scrapyards and car dealers to turn old cars over to the government, for a moderate reimbursement.  The next step is to make it nearly impossible to get them registered, or to resell them.”

“But that’s stupid,” Lexi said.  “Well-maintained old cars don’t pollute any more than new ones.”

“It’s not hard to squash a bunch of apparent clunkers and call it environmentalism,” Harold said.  “Who in his right mind is going to argue?”

“But what about the lower class?” Glen asked.  “Jesus, Ile du Soleil’s got almost no middle class as it is, isn’t that true?”  Charlie and Harold both nodded.  “So the people who can barely afford new cars now won’t be able to get transportation they can afford any more?”

“Probably not,” Harold said.  “You still want to call the Greens liberals?”

“I call them shortsighted.”

“I call them crazy.  A government of young guys who hate cars.  That’s just not right,” Lexi said.

“They are planning to add more public transportation.  For what it’s worth.”

“Well, not everyone enjoys the ‘every-man-for-himself’ system.”  Roger’s throaty voice cut through the conversation.  “Not that it’s all bad.  But sometimes I wonder if they haven’t taken the small-government thing a bit too far.  Do y’all know that corporations have been setting up shop in Solei because they know they can do pretty much whatever they want?  Dangerous factories, lax law enforcement, legal loopholes aplenty.”

“It’s a rich bastard’s paradise,” Lexi said.  She was standing her fork on end and rotating it slowly.

“So what was this trip to paradise that you passed up about?”

“Dobie Cassarell invited me to go see his collection, actually.”  She put the fork down.  “I’m pretty sure he was just trying to keep me from coming here.”

“Aw, is he jealous because we like you better than we like him?” Charlie mocked.  “What a putz.”

“Okay, Lexi, now we’re going to test you,” Dick said suddenly.  “Why did we want to bring you into the fold, and not Mr. Cassarell, with all of his millions?”

“Billions,” Glen corrected.  “He made the Forbes list again.”

“Either way.  Do you have any idea what makes you one of us, but not him?”

“Other than political correctness?” she asked, arching an eyebrow at Charlie. 
“I assume it’s because Dobie likes cars, but they’re commodities to him.  I don’t think he knows how to talk to them, or love them as anything other than investments and trophies.  Although, for the record, he’s like that with pretty much everything, from what I’ve seen. Maybe it’s curable.”

“Gold star,” Harold said, smiling.  As a fresh pitcher of beer arrived, he took it and stood, ready to pour.  “Gentlemen, will you join me in toasting our newest Roadie?”

For Lexi, that was perhaps the most embarrassing part of the day, but it was mercifully short.  The conversation turned to homebuilt garages then, and people began drifting off to the hotel for bed.  Lexi, Harold, Ray and Roger eventually left Dick and Jim, who seemed intent on closing the restaurant.

As they headed across the cold parking lot to the hotel, Harold touched Lexi’s elbow, and she held back with him.  “You told a little fib,” he said.

Her heart leapt into her throat.  What was he talking about?  “Did I?”

“I don’t know what happened to you on the way here, but I know you didn’t hit a deer.  Not unless they’re painting them metallic white these days.  Whatever you hit left some paint behind.”  Lexi opened her mouth to respond, and he held up his hand.  “I imagine it’s pretty embarrassing, getting into a wreck on the way to a meeting like this.  Don’t worry about it.  Shit happens.  ‘Long as everyone’s okay, you pick yourself up and keep going.”

“It wasn’t like that.”  She tried to meet his eyes, but looked at her own feet instead, ashamed at having been caught in a baldfaced lie.  Harold reminded her uncomfortably of her father. 

“Wasn’t like what?”

“It…it wasn’t an accident.  Someone…look, I don’t want to talk about it.  Can’t talk about it.  But it wasn’t my fault, and I’m not being defensive.  If I mess up, I’ll admit it.  Bert brought me up right,” she added.

Harold smiled, put his arm around her shoulders and swung her around, starting toward the hotel again.  “I can see that,” he said.  “And I’m not going to pry.  But remember, if you need our help, just call.  You’re family now.”

“And one day, perhaps I will ask you do to a favor for me,” Lexi intoned, channeling Vito Corleone.  Harold laughed, and held the door for her.