LEJ squints at the bumper of the two-toned '58 Plymouth as it vanishes up the DelRay Coast Road toward The Lucky U Motel. He crushes the butt of his Pall Mall with the heel of his Hurarachi sandal. Mr. Soup ? What the hell kinda vanity plate was that? But it rang bells for him. The story Pops Kipaweaha used to tell at the Surf Shop by Laguna Beach. Guy had bought a brand new Plymouth, showroom floor- took it home, stroked and bored it, tuned and twisted it til it ran like a lear jet on nitrous.

Then one day in the middle of the afternoon, at that very spot on Windy Point that overlooks Lighthouse Beach, he lost grip on the curve, and launched it off the cliff at 120 miles per hour. Hadn't it fetched up in the shallow breakers there, and finding no body in it, been allowed to rust away. Many times LEJ himself had parked at the turnout by the busted guardrail where it had happened. Perched on an overhanging chunk of limestone shelf, he had tossed Miller High Life bottles down at the rocks where the wreck had landed, watched the bottle glimmer and spin and diminish, watched it fall for a full eight seconds until he heard the faint pop of explosion on the boulders.Mr Soup? Was this the guy? Or was this just some personal harbinger sent to LEJ to frighten him out of all this foolishness?

Aw, hell. LEJ punched the Yardbirds into the eight-track, and I'm A Man began to pound from the speakers in the vette. He dropped the top, and stopped for a second to admire the California Sun reflecting out of the deep maroon finish, like blood illuminated. His cousin had a thing for old Plymouths. He'd let him have it for 300 dollars.

The vette roared up the highway toward the Lucky U Motel.