Baby-Blue BugD.T. Sako
She sat there at the curb, like an escapee from a retro sixties museum. She beamed with the baby blue of an infant’s nursery. Everything about her said innocent and unthreatening; from the affable bump of a nose, to the rounded tortoise shape, to the tiny taillights as unobtrusive as exit signs in a theater.
It was a vintage Volkswagen Beetle. This one was pristine, as if she had gone straight by flatbed from a German production line to a climate-controlled and acid-washed American garage, until the moment that I laid eyes on her.
The seller struck me as a bit on the hinky side, but no different, I supposed, than any number of people I was likely to meet from responding to a random want ad.
“Want to check out the insides?” he said.
“Sure.”
I opened the driver’s
