Ted & Arthur
I parked the station wagon on the street in front of H&H Auto Repair. Both of the men whose names had given their first initials to the sign were dead and gone. Young Henry Kellerman was killed in World War Two. Old Hank Kellerman died of a massive stroke a little less than five years ago.
Hank’s death took us all by surprise. One day he was there, sleeves rolled up, a wrench in his hand and a pipe in his mouth. The next day he was gone. Hank’s wife, Marie, told us afterward that her husband had eaten a good dinner and gone to sit on the front stoop to enjoy his pipe. When he didn’t come back inside after the customary amount of time, she went to check on him. By the time she opened the front door, Hank was gone. His big body was wedged in the corner of the stoop against the wrought iron railing. His head was back, and his eyes were closed like he was asleep. His pipe was still in his shirt pocket. The stroke which killed him struck as soon as he sat down.
Luckily, Hank had the foresight to sell his business while he was alive. The action saved his widow and his lawyers a lot of trouble once he was dead. His arrangement with the buyers was similar to the one Bea suggested for Walt and me. He had it written into the contract that he was permitted to remain a part of the daily operation of the shop as long as he wanted to. The buyers were more than happy to have him. The three had known each other for a long time. The buyers of H&H Auto were partners in business and in life. Their names were Arthur (Sunshine) Constantine, and Theodore (Ted) Danton.
Arthur and Ted had been figures in an investigation I conducted in 1953 which involved my old friend David Ploughman and his son Larry. Larry was accused of murdering his lover, Ted. It took David and I several days and me getting shot in the stomach to prove that Ted was alive. I was shot on the shop floor of Hank Kellerman’s place, the very garage I was about to walk into.
I climbed out of the car and felt the cold seep into my bones. I cursed myself again for being too lazy to get my overcoat before I left the apartment. My old joints protested against the weather with pain.
I hurried into the warmth of the shop office. I barely had time to close the door when a pair of strong arms wrapped me in a hug. “My God, Law!” A boyish voice exclaimed into my ear. “We’ve been worried sick!”
The strong arms released me and the body they were a part of stepped back. The hugger was red-headed Ted. His milk-white face grimaced with concern. “How’s Walt?”
I opened my mouth to explain how my husband was, but Ted didn’t let me. He put a finger up to stop my voice and cocked his ear toward the back of the shop. “That’ll be Arthur.”
The younger man had heard a sound which I hadn’t. A moment later, Arthur pushed into the office from the shop floor. He carried a brown paper bag with two paper-wrapped hoagies stuck out of the top. The scent of vinegar and cured meat entered the office with him.
Arthur was less demonstrative than Ted. “Hey, Law.” He said as he shut the door behind him. “How’s Walt?” He tossed the bag of food on the desk and shot a quick comment to Ted. “I already slopped the hogs.”
Ted didn’t appreciate his partner’s comment. “Arthur! Those ‘hogs’ are our valued employees!”
Arthur perched his compact body in the swivel chair which once belonged to Hank. He propped his elbows on the desk and ducked his head indifferently. “They might be our employees, but the way they tore into the food, let’s just say I wouldn’t have wanted to get too close to the break room table. I might’ve wound up as a pile of gnawed bones instead of the love of your life.”
I laughed at the banter between the lovers. I couldn’t help but laugh. Even though they loved each other dearly, they had a tendency to bicker like old women. I still liked to tease them, so I referred to Arthur by his one-time nickname. “Not a damn thing changes. Not ever. Sunshine, you’re still a sullen son of a bitch, and Ted, you’re still you. Don’t ever change, either of you!”
I laughed. Ted laughed. Even Arthur managed to chuckle. When our humor settled, Arthur unwrapped the hoagies. “You want some lunch? Teddy and I don’t like the same thing, so we always get separate sandwiches, but they’re too big for either of us to finish.”
My stomach grumbled. I was surprised that I was hungry. I hadn’t noticed it was lunchtime. “Must’ve been at the Y longer than I thought.” I said to myself as I checked the hour on my wristwatch. I’d forgotten to wind the thing again. I wound it up and reset the time to match an electric clock on the wall. When I finished with my watch, Arthur still stared at me. “What?”
“Lunch?” He asked to remind me of his earlier question.
“Yes, please.” I pulled a chair up to the desk.
As I waited for Arthur to divide up the food, I observed that he and Ted looked well. Neither of them had aged a day in the fifteen years I’d known them. Ted was in his middle thirties, but he looked like a boy. Arthur was older, in his early forties, but he also looked much younger than he was. I wondered if the slight build which both men shared made them appear younger.
I examined my surroundings while we ate. The office was clean and tidy. The adjacent customer waiting area had been spruced up with new chairs, a coffee table, and some current magazines. Sullen Sunshine was the cleaner-upper and the decorator. Ted had no sense of aesthetic. When the couple first got together, Sunny, or ‘Arthur’ as Ted insisted we call him, had his work cut out to teach Ted how to present himself in public.
Ted was originally from the big city of Detroit, but he was very much a bumpkin when it came to matters of style. Arthur had a good eye and a deep desire to be taken seriously. He’d been the one to spruce up H&H Auto and to redecorate the apartment the couple lived in.
Even though it was in a crappy part of town, the garage did good business. Word of Ted’s mechanical prowess had spread. He and Arthur capitalized on his reputation. They landed a pair of lucrative accounts for vehicle fleet maintenance with some big local employers. The work they did for the U-Drive car rental firm, and for the White Glove Taxi Company, kept their shop busy and profitable. I was glad of their success and of their fifteen-year relationship.
I told Ted and Arthur about Walt’s progress as he recovered from his heart attack. They conveyed their best wishes, which I promised to bring to Walt. Around the time we were crumpling the paper wrappers from our sandwiches, we were ready to talk business.
Ted did the talking for both he and Arthur. “I hope what we did is alright, Law. You called us on the eleventh. I guess that was a Tuesday.”
“Monday.” Arthur corrected.
“Monday.” Ted repeated with a nod. “You said to tow the car and fix it up for your friend and you would take care of the cost.”
“We’re on the same page so far.”
Ted continued. “We brought the car in on Tuesday and looked it over. The only reason it wouldn’t run was the condenser went bad. That’s a twenty-nine cent part. We had it running quick. You told us to fix it up, though, so we didn’t stop there. It needed a lot of work. We tuned it up, replaced the brake linings all around, and put a set of used tires on it. We also changed one wheel bearing and replaced the belt and hoses. The car should be good for a while, now.”
I started to thank Ted, but he cut me off. “The trouble is, we couldn’t check with you on the cost. We called and called at your apartment. We didn’t find out about Walt’s heart attack until we telephoned the restaurant the next day, on Wednesday. Arthur wanted to wait until we could talk to you about the repairs, but I said that we didn’t know how bad your friend needed the car. I decided to do what needed to be done.”
I tried a second time to thank Ted, but he still wouldn’t let me. He talked over me. His speech became breathless chatter. “You’ve been a good customer. You’ve also been a good friend to Arthur and me. Both you and Walt have been so kind to us. Me and Arthur wouldn’t even be me and Arthur without you. I told him that we should just fix the car and if you weren’t alright with the price, we’d forget the whole thing. Even if you refuse to pay, there won’t be no hard feelings. I don’t think I could ever have hard feelings for you, ‘specially with what you’ve been goin’ through lately.”
“TED!” I barked to get him to stop talking.
He stopped with a gasp and stood silent. I asked a basic question which I hoped would settle all concerns. “How much are we talking about?”
“Seventy-four dollars and eighty cents.” He bleated like the amount was a staggering sum.
“Plus tax.” Arthur added from his perch at the desk.
“Plus tax!” Ted exclaimed in shock that Arthur would mention the government-required addition to the bill. He sprang from his chair to give his partner the business. “You’ve got nerve with your ‘plus tax!’ After what poor Law has had to suffer, you sit there and say, ‘plus tax.’ I’m ashamed of you, Arthur!”
Arthur shrugged, like he always did. I smiled at the sweetness of Ted’s concern and at the false indifference of Arthur’s shrug. I realized as I grinned that I liked them both a great deal.
I’d been dubious about both men when I first met them. Arthur had struck me as a sullen little prick who wanted desperately to be a big man. Ted struck me as a greedy whore and a user who was almost as bad as Smug Stanley, the murderer. I was glad to find out I was wrong about both of them.
I eventually learned that Arthur’s sullenness was basically an act. It was how the sensitive man hid his sensitivities from the harsh world. As for Ted, his well-earned reputation as a whore was just a pendulum swing away from the repression his pious mother forced upon him for his entire youth. He dropped those bad habits as soon as he partnered with Arthur.
As for Ted’s habits as a user, he wasn’t really. His thievery had all been done in the name of helping his friend, Stan. Stan had convinced gullible Ted that he needed money because he was in danger from gamblers who had mob ties, but it was all horseshit. Once Ted found out that everything Stan said was a lie, he did his best to lead a better life.
My mind was busy in the distant past when Arthur’s monotone voice burrowed its way through my flashes of memory. The droning was how the small man made his points. “Tax is a legitimate cost.” He insisted to his indignant partner. “Someone has to pay Uncle Sam. If Law doesn’t do it, then we have to do it for him.”
Ted argued right back. “Sales tax goes to the state, Arthur! What we pay to Uncle Sam is completely separate. And even if it wasn’t, I’m not going to quibble over a few dollars of tax with someone who has done as much for us as Law has. Don’t you have any gratitude at all?”
“Yes, I do. That’s friendship and this is business. They’re not the same thing.”
“You’re impossible!”
“HEY!” I shouted to get everybody’s attention at once. “It’s fine. I’ll pay, including the tax. You did the right thing fixing the car. I’m glad you did. Thank you. Thank you, both.”
Arthur didn’t accept my thanks in any visible way. He laid his hands flat on the desk blotter and let his fingers spread wide in a meaningless gesture. “The guy whose car it was, I forget his name. He asked for the bill when he came to pick it up. He got insistent with me.”
“His name was Doc.” Ted reminded his partner.
“That wasn’t his name. He had a great, big, long name. I saw it on the registration on the steering column. I can’t remember it. Sounded rich with all those letters lined up like that.” Arthur ducked his head again. “Anyway, I didn’t give him the bill. I told him my business was with you, Law.”
“I’m glad you did. Did he say anything when he picked the car up? I need to find him.”
The couple asked what happened. I took a few minutes to explain the stupid things I said and the fact that Doc left my apartment as fast as his repaired Oldsmobile would carry him.
Arthur expressed his sympathy. “I’m sorry, but your friend and I didn’t talk much. He seemed stuck in his own head. He came in, said he was here for the Olds wagon, and asked for the bill. When I said what I said about you paying for the repairs, he argued. When he saw that I wasn’t going to give in, he begged. ‘Please,’ he said, ‘I’m trying to make it right.’”
He patted the desk blotter like a sleepy kitten kneading a blanket. “I’m not a hard-hearted man. I know how I come off, but Teddy knows I try to treat people the way I want to be treated. The way your Doc begged, I almost gave in. I knew you wouldn’t like it if I did, so I tried to explain why I wouldn’t. ‘Law wants to do this for you. Helping folks makes him happy. I’m not going to go against him for you or anyone.’ He didn’t say nothing from then on. I handed over his keys and he left in the car.”
The story didn’t tell me much. It only told me that Doc was trying to make something ‘right.’ I had no idea what. I asked a question I hoped would give me a lead. “How did he get here?”
Both men shook their heads. “No idea.” Arthur admitted. “I was telephoning a parts order to the warehouse when he came in. By the time I looked up, there he was.”
Ted had a similar story. “I was in the side lot working on another car. I was trying to get it running to drive it into the shop so we could fix it. Doc came out and spoke to me before he got in his car to leave. He asked if I knew what was done to it. I told about the work we did, but I didn’t give away any prices. The list of work I rattled off seemed to make him unhappy. ‘Sounds like a lot.’ I told him that it was kind of a lot of work to put into a twenty-year-old car, but it should be good for a long while as long as he takes care of it.”
I started to retreat into my thoughts when Ted added a comment to the end of his tale. “I was glad to see the car drive away. Gave me the creeps to have it here.”
“Really?” I asked in surprise. I’d noticed that the car was the same year and brand as the one which Ted’s old boyfriend owned. I’d been able to identify it from its frowning grill. I didn’t expect to hear that Ted was bothered by having a similar vehicle around the shop. I wondered if the reason was that it brought back bad memories or if he thought the car would conjure the spirit of long dead Stan. “Are you superstitious?”
Arthur laughed at my question. “Teddy is as bad as an old maid. He won’t even step on cracks in the sidewalk. The last time one of our mechanics broke a mirror on a car, I thought he was going to bring a priest in to have the shop exorcised.”
Ted shivered. “You killed Stanley right out there.” He pointed at the wall of the office toward the shop floor. “I know Doc’s wagon isn’t the same car as the business coupe Stanley drove, but it’s still a ’49 Olds. I hated having it here. Every morning when I opened up, I’d see the grill in the dark. It sent a chill up my spine.”
Arthur laughed again. “Teddy hates to open by himself. He especially hates it in the winter when it’s dark in the morning. He thinks old Stan is haunting the shop. We opened together once, about two weeks ago. The shop lights hadn’t even warmed up yet and the air compressor kicked on. He damn near came out of his skin.”
Arthur laughed and Ted pouted. Ted’s pout didn’t last long because Arthur jumped up from the desk and went to hug his partner. Arthur kissed Ted’s face and spoke his feelings into it. “He’s superstitious, but I love him anyways.”
Ted professed love for Arthur, in spite of his flaws as well.
We talked a little more, then I left. Before I went, I wrote a check to cover the cost of the repairs to Doc’s car, including the tax. I also thanked my friends for brightening my day.
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