Why didn’t he get up and go find Reg for me? He didn’t even look up again. Cursing him under my breath, I stomped through the dusty yard as my shoes turned a dingy brown. In the big garage where the mechanics were all bent over the engines of sports cars, I stepped into a grease puddle. “Reg! Reg!” I called again over the clang of tools and an unseen radio playing Hank Williams. “Reg! I need your help!”

Reg emerged from under the hood—the “bonnet,” he would have said—of a Triumph. He wore oil-stained overalls and wiped his hands on an oil-stained rag. He plucked a cigarette out of his mouth and grinned at me. “Miss Granville. Oh no, more trouble with the Silver Bullet?”

“I’m in a hurry, Reg. Really. You have to look at it right now. I have a lunch date at Pierino’s and I have to be there. I can’t be late.”

“Let’s have a look at her.” Cars were always female to Reg. He walked out with me, opened the MG’s hood, and poked about, muttering to himself. He tried to start it, to no avail. “Sorry, Miss Granville, it’s the electrical system. It’ll take me a couple of days. Parts, you know. Hard to come by.” The colored man strolled out of the office, and Reg turned to him. “Your Porsche is ready, Mr. Dexter. I’ve just asked Bob to take it round the block once, just to be sure all’s well while I do your paperwork.”

“Thanks, Reg,” said Mr. Dexter without a glance at me.

Blood pounded into my face from embarrassment, lighting up my birthmark. Everything I’d assumed was wrong. The Negro man did not work here. He was a customer. He carried a sport coat over his shoulder; he was well dressed, certainly not in greasy overalls, but I had not seen that behind the newspaper. Moreover, something about him was oddly—not familiar, exactly, but, well, something . . . I said again to Reg that I had to have the car, and I had to have it fast. “I have a very important lunch appointment. I need to be there.”

“Sorry, miss. You know what these electrical systems are like.” He began explaining how English cars used two six-volt batteries and American cars used one twelve-volt and . . .

I just wanted the damn thing to run, to be reliable. Too much to ask of a British car. I regretted not driving a Cadillac like everyone else. A cab into the city would cost me a fortune, more cash than I had with me.

Reg went into the office, and Mr. Dexter came up to me. He was tall, broad-shouldered, solid, his hair cut short and close to his head, his skin a deep mahogany. His large dark eyes were expressive and flickered with mirth. Then he was instantly serious. “Where is your appointment?”