"Hit the starter," she said. "Key on. Just a couple seconds."
"You're gonna hold that while I crank it."
"The pliers are insulated."
"Uh-huh." But he leaned over and turned the key and thumbed the button. The engine churned. Josie stared at the tiny gap at the end of the plug, the place where there should have been a fat blue spark snapping like a match head.
Nothing. Not a flicker.
"Okay," she said. "You can stop."
He stopped. The street was very quiet. Somewhere down by the tracks a dog was barking at a train that wasn't there.
"No spark," Boone said.
"No spark." She set the pliers down. "Carburetors don't make spark. Even a brand-new one. If the gas was boiling you'd have spark and no fuel. You've got the other thing."
"Could be the plug wires."
"Could be." She liked that he said it. It meant he was thinking, not just being mad. "But it's both cylinders at once, right? It stopped like a switch. Both plugs share the one coil, so it's the coil, or what tells the coil when to fire." She pointed at the round chrome cover low on the right side of the engine, the size of a silver dollar, held on by two little screws. "Is it still points? Not electronic?"
Boone uncrossed his arms. He looked at the round cover and then at her, and for the first time he looked something other than tired and annoyed. He looked surprised, and he did not look like a man who was surprised very often.
"Still points," he said. "Never did change it over."
"Can I take the cover off?"