hand comes back right, and I don't know if I want a man in my shop who swings first. I've had those. They swing at cars, too."
Dennis nodded. His jaw was working. Mr. Okonski stood beside him with his hands in his pockets, saying nothing, and I understood then that he had brought his son here not to plead for him but to make him hear it straight from the man himself, the way he had once had to hear it on the line at Republic.
I took the Band-Aid tin out of my pocket.
I had not planned exactly what I would say. I held it out, not to Hutch, but to Mr. Okonski. "It's three hundred and nine dollars," I said. "And thirty-five cents. For the Conway door. It's not eleven hundred, but it's a start, and I can get more. I'll mow. I'll get on somewhere. It's my fault he—"
"Put that away," said Mr. Okonski.
"Sir—"
"Rollie." He did not raise his voice. He did not need to. "That's your mother's car."
"It was going to be my mother's car. It's not going to be anything now. It's three hundred dollars sitting on top of a refrigerator." My voice was doing something embarrassing. "Dennis broke his hand because of me. He lost September because of me. I'm not going to stand here and let your family pay eleven hundred dollars for a door because some—because Win Conway said something about my father."
Hutch was looking at the tin in my hand with an expression I could not read.
"Eleven hundred dollars," he said. "For what door?"
I told him. The Corvette, the crack, the fiberglass, eight inches top to middle, paint chipped away at the top. Hutch listened with his head on one side.
"That's a bonded panel," he said. "Eighty-six convertible. Sheet molded compound, not hand-laid. A crack like that, you don't replace the door. You grind it out in a vee, you back it up from the inside, you lay in glass and resin, you build it up, you sand it, you prime it, you match the red." He snorted. "Flame Red's a pain to match. But eleven hundred? That's the dealer's retail book on a new door skin plus a paint shop's markup on the whole side. I could do that crack for two hundred in materials and a weekend."
We all looked at him.
"I'm not offering," he said. "I'm telling you what it is."
That was when we heard the car.