In the week that followed, Woody caught only a few glimpses of Mary Jane. She cut him dead each time. They'd had their quarrels before, but Woody realized that this time it was pretty serious, and there was little he could do to alter the situation.
"When a dame spends five bucks fixing up her hair to be taken out and you spend ten bucks fixing up a hot rod and don't take her out, you're back in the stag line again," his friend Steve Phillips told him philosophically. "Why don't you forget about that pile of junk and spend your time straightening things out with Mary Jane? She's a nice kid. You ought to take more care of her."
"Wouldn't do any good," said Woody. "Besides, if she's going to be my steady, she's got to take the hot rod as well. I'm not interested in dames that want me to spend the rest of my life catching up on Aldous Huxley and Somerset Maugham. Betcha neither of them can drive a car."
Woody spent the week fixing up Cindy Lou in the intervals between working in Worm's garage. He wanted to get her ready for a trial run at the salt lakes out in the Mojave Desert by the following Saturday. The salt lakes were where the drag races were held. But there could be none that weekend. However, the quarter-mile, half-mile, and mile markers would be there, and he would be able to test Cindy Lou's speed.
In the drag races, hot rods do not compete directly with each other. They go singly over the measured straightaway. Their speeds are electrically timed and the winner picked on a fastest-time basis. Steve had agreed to come out to the salt lakes to help with the timing. And even Worm began to show an interest in Cindy Lou now that she was nearing her test run.
He came over one evening while Woody was adjusting the tappets and looked at Cindy Lou with enormous disfavor.
"Mon," he said, "ye're not intending ta drive that contraption, are ye?"
"Sure," said Woody. "Ought to go like a bomb. Figure I can get her up past the hundred mark."
Worm made no reply to this other than to give a disapproving cluck of his tongue. He was fascinated by the weird engine position and got down on the ground on his back to examine it and the differential hook-up.
"It's all contrary to Davie's Problems and Principles of Internal Combustion Engines," he said when he emerged from beneath the hot rod. "That Davie was a sound mon, now. Ye'd do better ta spend more time studying his book, of which I have a copy in the office. How many gears do ye have on this beastie?"
"Two," said Woody highly flattered, despite Worm's disapproval, that he was taking any interest in Cindy Lou at all. "Low will take her up to about sixty-five from a standing start. I have to hit sixty before I can shift up. Then she'll really take off."
"Hae ye figured out yere flywheel revolutions?" asked Worm.
"About six thousand revolutions per minute at maximum torque," said Woody.
"Mon, mon," said Worm. "Davie would na' like it at all."
Nonetheless, Worm was obviously fascinated by the hot rod and gave a grunt of approval at the way in which the various engineering problems of its unorthodox design had been solved. Indeed, he became so interested that after inquiring cautiously whether it would be very expensive, he agreed to come out to the salt lakes and help with the speed trials.
"Ye'll be needing some cold plugs, I'm thinking," he said. "The ones ye have there'll never do the trick. I've eight I can lend ye. But ye must gie them back when ye're through wi' them." He went into his office while Woody looked in wonder at Steve. He'd never known Worm to show so much interest in a car before.
"Wonder what's come over him," he said.
"Maybe he's trying to make up for not lending you that dough the other night," Steve suggested.
Woody shook his head. "He thinks he did me a favor," he said. "His idea of dames is that the more money they let you spend on them, the less they are worth."
"Maybe he's got something there," said Steve.
Worm now returned with the eight plugs. They were of an Italian make, each wrapped in a piece of greased paper on which instructions on their care and setting were printed. Happily these were printed in English as well.
"I'll set them myself for ye," said Worm. "But ye'd best not use them until the speed trial. Hoo are ye going tae get yon bucket of bolts oot to the track? Ye canna drive it through the streets wi' only two gears. Onyway, I don't think the police would let ye, wi' the engine beside the driver."
Woody explained that the car would have to be towed. He had a tow bar and hoped to borrow somebody else's car for the job.
Again Worm surprised him.
"We can use the Dodge," he said. This was indeed a concession, for the Dodge, a 1928 model, was Worm's greatest love. He'd bought it in a junk yard for ten dollars and rebuilt it himself. Every year he took the whole engine apart, renewed any parts that were worn, and put it back together again. New parts he had to make himself or have made. Yet he would not consider buying another car and puttered back and forth in the Dodge at a maximum speed of thirty miles an hour.
The Dodge had solid wheels and strange thin tires. Its seats compelled their occupants to sit bolt upright. It was a roadster, with a canvas top set on oak supports. When it rained, and the top was put up, side curtains of isinglass had to be installed to keep the rain out. The windshield wiper operated spasmodically off the manifold vacuum, and the gas tank, made of brass, was outside the car, slung in the rear.
Nonetheless, it never failed to start at the press of a button, and since it couldn't go any faster than thirty miles an hour, its two-wheel mechanical brakes were adequate.
That evening Woody worked late making up a batch of dope for Cindy Lou. The highest octane gasoline available was not good enough to give her top performance. She needed special fuel of which the base was gasoline. But, to this, Woody added alcohol and nitro-methane, the whole concoction smelling vilely and promising an explosion at any moment.
He mixed up a total of six gallons, which he placed in three two-gallon containers and put them in a cool part of the garage.
When he got home that evening—it was Friday—he was dog tired and almost too excited to eat. Cindy Lou was hopped up as well as he could do with his present equipment. She ought to do well. And if she did, he'd enter her in the Southcal Drag Races at the old Burbank airport in two weeks. That could mean winning a cup.
"Woody," his mother said when he came through the kitchen door. "Somebody called you on the phone about ten minutes ago. But she hung up without giving her name when I said you weren't in."
"Any idea who it was?" Woody asked.
"It sounded like Mary Jane," his mother replied.
"Gosh," said Woody and went immediately to the telephone. His father, now back from his business trip and sitting in the living room reading, sighed. He served on the City Council at Hermosa Beach and was having a hard time analysing a report on street improvement.
"Try and keep it short," he said, but he didn't think it would do much good. Telephone conversations with Mary Jane seemed to last a minimum of half an hour.
"Hello," said Woody into the phone. "Mary Jane? Were you calling me?" There was a short interval of silence during which Mr. Hartford was shocked to discover from his report that it had cost the city $217 to replace damaged rubbish-disposal bins during the year. Then Woody said plaintively, "Gee, Mary Jane. I can't. I've got Cindy Lou all fixed up and I'm going to try her out—" He didn't finish the sentence but hung up despondently.
Mr. Hartford looked up from his report. Vague memories of similar unsatisfactory conversations many years before with Woody's mother came back to him.
"Something wrong, son?" he asked.
"Oh, Mary Jane wants me to go to somebody's birthday party, and now she's mad because I have to take Cindy Lou out for a fast run."
Mr. Hartford took off his glasses and looked at his son strangely. It was as if he had suddenly discovered a completely new aspect of his character.
"Cindy Lou for a fast run?" he said.
"Cindy Lou is Woody's hot rod," Mrs. Hartford explained, and his father relaxed.
"Oh," he grunted. There were times when he realized that Woody lived in a world completely different from his own, and this was one of them.
"Never mind," said Mrs. Hartford comfortingly. "Mary Jane's a sensible girl. She'll see things in their right light after a while. Your father and I had many misunderstandings before we were married."
"Yes," said Woody gloomily. "But there wasn't a Bob Peters with a yellow Buick convertible hanging around in the background."
"As I recall it," said Mr. Hartford, "there was a young medical student by the name of Saunders who drove a Stutz Bearcat. But for my happy intervention, my boy, you might be the son of a doctor, devoting your life to the dissection of frogs."
Mrs. Hartford laughed, and for a moment she seemed, even to Woody, a young girl.
Woody was up at four in the morning and met Steve and Worm at the garage. Steve had brought two stop watches as promised, and everything was ready, including the sandwiches that Mrs. Hartford had prepared for the three of them. It took six hours in the Dodge to get to the Mojave salt lake where Cindy Lou was to undergo her trials. Nobody else was there, and during the last-minute preparations for the first run even Worm seemed a little nervous. The cold spark plugs were put in after Worm had gapped them properly; Woody drained the fuel from Cindy Lou's tank and poured in his special dope.
When all was ready, Woody got into the hot rod, which, after a complaining cough and a whirr or two, fired up.
"Warm her oop a little," said Worm. "Mon, dinna' ye install yer safety belt?"
"Sure," said Woody. "It's on the floor." He buckled it around him and squirmed into as comfortable a position as possible behind the wheel.
"Everybody knows what he's got to do?" he said. "Steve, you stand by the starting line. Worm's going to be at the half-mile mark. Don't watch me. Watch Worm. The moment I start to move, press the stop watch. When I pass the half-mile mark, Worm will bring down the checkered flag. Stop the watch right then. Maybe we ought to try it a couple of times to see if everybody understands."
He made two trial runs, not pressing Cindy Lou but giving her a chance to warm up. Everything went as planned.
"Swell," said Woody, "this time it's for real. Ready?" Steve nodded, and Woody brought Cindy Lou to the starting line. He stopped her dead, and then, with a slight nod of his head, slipped her in low and stepped on the gas. The take-off flung him back against the seat. The flat salt bed of the desert sped beneath him like a gleaming white ribbon. Woody looked at the speedometer. Forty-five. Fifty. Fifty-five. Sixty. Sixty-five. He slammed the clutch down and flung the gearshift back toward him. Cindy Lou seemed to leave the ground in a clean leap forward. Woody grinned. Smooth as silk and swift as an arrow. Boy what a rod, he thought. He hardly saw Worm as he flashed by. It took him a mile across the salt flats to slow down. When he got back Steve said, "Twenty seconds."
"That's an average of ninety miles an hour over the half mile from a standing start," said Woody. "Man, she goes like a bird. But she ought to do better than that. This time I'll really pour the coal to her."
The second run showed an average of ninety-two miles an hour from the standing start.
"Try her over the mile," Steve suggested. "Then you can see what she'll do when she has time to get rolling."
Woody waited until Worm had driven out to the mile mark in the Dodge and waved his flag to show he was ready. Then he took off again. This time he decided that he'd wind Cindy Lou up real tight in low as fast as he could, and jam her into high with his foot all the way down on the accelerator. The hot rod fled down the salt flat with a defiant snarling roar. For the split second when she was in neutral between gear shifts, it seemed to Woody she would shake herself to pieces. Then he flipped her into high and again experienced that clean lancing forward as the gear took hold.
With the accelerator all the way down it seemed as if Worm and the ground he stood upon were being flung toward him. Then, from the engine by his side, came a strange and ominous sound. It started as nothing more than a heavy knocking but in seconds was as if forty blacksmiths were beating on a boiler with sledge hammers. Cindy Lou slowed down so fast that it seemed as if her brakes had seized. Woody slipped her into neutral and turned off the ignition. The clanging and hammering stopped immediately.
Worm came loping up. "What happened, laddie?" he asked.
"I don't know," Woody said. "She just blew up."
"Turn her over," said Worm. Woody pressed the starter, and the grinding and banging started immediately. Worm got down and looked under Cindy Lou.
"Connecting rod," he said. "A piece of it has come clear through the pan. Yere oil's leaking oot. Worse than that. It must have broken through the cylinder wall. There's water wi' the oil."
He looked at Woody and decided not to say anything more. There was nothing more that could be said. Cindy Lou was a wreck. She'd need a completely new engine if she was ever to run again.
They towed her home in silence.