Nobody buys a 1959 Dodge Custom Royal Lancer to fly under the radar.  Ordering one in Grey Rose Poly and Black assures anything but anonymity.

When just such a new automobile pulled through Fort Stockton and into the parking lot of the Cattle Baron Hotel in November of 1958, people took notice more than if it was bad weather rolling into town.  If the ’58 models had been alluring, the refreshed ’59s were downright sexy.  The front end looked back at you with sultry eyes that made you look away, as though you weren’t worthy.  The grill had become much more massive and imposing, with additional components nestled in the front bumper adding even more chrome covered heft.  The tail lamps of the ’58 became longer, more erect, and sheathed in chrome for even greater effect and protection.

Gertie at the front desk certainly took note of the Dodge’s arrival out front.  She was used to the steady stream of Fords and Chevys that made their way to the hotel.  Usually the fleet models, covered in road dust, and with more highway miles on them than they should have had for their age.  The base level Biscaynes, Fairlanes, and Plymouth Plazas, usually driven by tired salesmen pushing similar products, all hoping to be home by the weekend were what pulled in under the canopy just outside the front doors.  If they were staying at the Cattle Baron, they had to be moderately successful.  Those just starting out or those not meeting their quotas stayed out at the Naughty Pine Motel on the edge of town.  If they were at the Cattle Baron, they were a cut above.  But not on the level of the Dodge Custom Royal Lancer idling under the port-a-cacher on this autumn afternoon.

The stranger behind the wheel hit the ’N’ button on the dash and set the parking brake to come in and register, leaving the 361 V8 running.  But not before he took the face of the girl seated next to him in both hands and planted a kiss on her lips that made Gertie’s knees go a little weak while she watched.  “Swear to God, his tongue had to have hit that girl’s tonsils before he pulled away and got out of the car,” she told Trixie the next morning while getting her hair done at the Klip-N-Dye.  Trixie was as impressed by the description as anything else she’d heard all morning.

He paid for two nights.  Cash.  Said they might be staying longer, but would let her know.  Signed the guest book only ‘Dean’.  “Is that a first or last name?” Gertie asked him as he grabbed the key off the desk and headed out to the Dodge.

“Yes,” he replied.  A little wink in her direction and the glass front door quickly closing behind him ended the conversation.  She glanced down at the registration book again and saw where he had written ‘LA’  in the blank for the license plate number.  She had no idea whether that meant Los Angeles or Louisiana.  Didn’t really matter.  There would only even be one Grey Rose Poly and Black Dodge Custom Royal Lancer in the parking lot.  It’s not like she’d get it confused.

He parked the Dodge in the first row of the parking lot, not far from the front door, under the shade of the big oak, offering Gertie a better glimpse of the woman in the passenger seat.  Exotic looking.  Maybe foreign, Mediterranean perhaps.  Certainly not Fort Stockton, probably not Texas. Having retrieved but one medium-sized American Tourister bag from the back of the cavernous trunk, he went around to the passenger side and opened her door. “You know I’ve never played for the other team,” Gertie told Trixie when describing the passenger in the Dodge, “but I swear I had a girl crush on that woman the minute those long legs eased out of the long two toned door of that coupe.”  She couldn’t believe she’d even said that out loud and looked around to be sure nobody other than Trixie heard the confession. 

Holding her door open, he allowed her to exit the cabin gracefully, with just enough of her dress sliding up her thigh to momentarily distract anyone’s attention from the car.  He grabbed the bag, walked her to the glass front door of the hotel, opened it and they glided through the lobby, as if on a cloud, and toward the elevator where the doors slid open, as if on command.  “The whole thing was like watching a Hollywood movie,” Gertie relayed.  “From the massive, beautiful car out front to the elevator inside, it was like their moves were choreographed.  So elegant.  So sensual.”  Trixie stepped away and went to the back, where she could get a sip of RC Cola and regain her composure.

Once in their room, the guest in the room next door heard sounds.  He first attributed them to what he thought was the black and white TV that came with the rooms on the second floor, The Suites.  He thought he recognized a deep voice that may have been Perry Mason, a favorite show of his.  But then there were tones that were obviously feminine, and higher pitched.  Much higher pitched.  He had only caught a fleeting glimpse of the provocative woman as she slipped into the room next door, her handsome companion behind her as the door shut.  He thought that perhaps it wasn’t the TV after all.

Quietly tearing the paper covering from one of the glasses on the try next to the ice bucket on the desk, he carefully put the glass to the wall to see if he could determine the exact nature of the sounds coming from the other side.  The makeshift listening device coupled with the increased volume of the passionate mutterings left little doubt that the sounds had nothing to do with Perry Mason, or anything else that would ever be broadcast on publicly broadcast airwaves.  He delayed his dinner plans, admiring the young lady’s resiliency as well as the gentleman’s stamina.  The last audible words he could make out were “Just like that!” in a very high tone, and said repeatedly.  The sounds that followed were more guttural than literal.

Within minutes he heard the water running in the pipes of the shared wall and assumed the shower was in use.  He waited as the alluring couple next door prepared for an evening out, timing his own exit to coincide with their’s for a better look.  Eventually, hearing their door open, he grabbed his fedora and headed for his own door, attempting to not make it obvious.  In only a minute the three of them were in the elevator together, the young nubile couple barely noticing his presence as they looked into each other’s eyes.

Their neighbor watched them go out the front door in front of him and make their way over to the Dodge.  He nodded his head up and down to himself, ever so slightly.  Acknowledging silently the taste the man had in cars and women, and how similar those tastes were.  The roof, fins, and lower flanks of the Dodge Custom Lancer were as black as the woman’s eyes, and the perfect contrast to the stark white dinner jacket her companion wore.  The salesman from the room next door headed over to his dusty Plymouth sedan in order to head over to the K-Bob’s before it closed, watching over his shoulder to see the gentleman open the door of the Dodge and help his lady in.

They had reservations for the Silver Slipper Super Club out on Lake Leon.  The Dave Brubeck Quartet was playing and the couple only missed enough of the songs in each set to be able to enjoy the rare fillets and lobster tail Chef Daniel offered as the special that evening.  Others in the club or on the dance floor were enamored by the steamy couple, having noted their entrance as the valet drove the Dodge to its spot up front for the evening.

“Is that Dodge purple and black?” Rex Hall asked as he walked past with his wife.  

“I’d call it Orchid,” she replied.

“I’d call it damn gorgeous,” he said.  “Nobody can do fins like Exner, I don’t care what anybody says.  He can sculpt a body better than God can.”  As they walked in and were seated at their regular table near the dance floor and he saw the girl in the black dress, he muttered, “I take that back.”  His wife was taken aback, but couldn’t argue.

The couple from out of town spent the evening dancing in each other’s arms, oblivious to the crowd, and the size of the bar tab they were racking up.  While never impolite, they were not to be bothered with small talk.  Being the last to leave, everyone else who’d been to the Silver Slipper that night had noticed the Dodge Custom Royal Lancer Coupe as they left.  When it was finally time to go, the gentleman walked over to Dave Brubeck and handed him a fifty to split with the boys.  The waitress received similar consideration, as did Hank who was tending bar that evening.  The valet received a twenty  to retrieve the Dodge from its spot fifteen feet away, his biggest tip of the night for the shortest distance traveled.

“Truth be told, I’d a given him twenty just to be able to drive that Dodge and open the door for the lubricious lady on his arm,” he told his buddy the next day when describing the Dodge to him in detail.

But this is where the story takes a turn.

Twenty minutes later, the Dodge was under the bright lights of the parking lot, the gentleman exiting the driver’s side of the car, but not making the dash to the other side to open the passenger door, for there was no passenger.  Instead, he made a beeline for the front door, through the lobby, and into the elevator before Gertie could say a word.  There was no female companion to be found.  In fact, Gertie pondered going up to the second floor suite and knocking on the door to see if everything was alright, but then thought better of how that might appear.

When she got to work the next morning, the Dodge was gone.  Syd, the night clerk, told her the gentleman had left before sunup, by himself.  “I watched that gorgeous car of his pull out of the parking lot, myself.  The scowl of the front of that Dodge seemed to be matched by the man driving it.”  Gertie made her way to the second floor suite and let herself in.  The sheets were pulled up, the closet empty except for a small black dress hanging inside.  The bathroom vanity was strewn with cosmetics and lipsticks.  A small bottle of Nina Ricci L’Air du Temps remained atop the counter, two thirds full.  Gertie sprayed a bit on her wrist, rubbed both her wrists together, inhaling the scent and sliding the bottle into her pocket.

“Just like that,” people said around Fort Stockton for days later, “she was gone.  Somewhere between the Silver Slipper and the Cattle Baron Hotel she vanished.”

It becomes a bit of an obsession as news of the Grey Rose Poly and Black Dodge and the beautiful passenger it held spread.  Folks in the Piggly Wiggly speculated whether the car was from California, where “things like that probably happen every day,” or Louisiana, where “nobody drives a car like that”.  There was speculation of foul play being involved, although there were never any signs of such a thing.  The salesman in the Plymouth who’d been next door requested the same room every time he returned to Fort Stockton in hopes that the  orchid and ebony Dodge would be out front when he pulled into the parking lot.  Of course, it never was.

The stories became so widespread at the Klip-N-Dye and Rusty Hammer Hardware Store that folks convinced Chief Martin to gather up a group of volunteers, deputize them, and have them search the only places a body could be hidden anywhere between the Silver Slipper Super Club and the hotel in town.  The chief, egged on by Mayor Goodman’s wife, made several attempts right up till Christmas that year, but came up empty handed.  All the way through 1959 and into 1960, maybe even ’61, people would mention something about having seen a two toned Dodge, or a beautiful woman in a short black dress somewhere in town, or close by.  There was even an article in the Stockton Telegram-Dispatch in the spring of 1959, an effort to keep the flames fanned, folks said.

And then, just like that, the whole thing was kind of forgotten.  Angry faces, two toned paint schemes, and fins on cars fell out of fashion.  People forgot about the alluring coupe and the seductive couple driving it.  Gerty stopped using the perfume left behind in the second floor suite and replaced it with something from Avon since her sister-in-law became an Avon Lady when her husband left.

And then, one day a few weeks ago, we were all at the big table in the middle of the Grounds for Divorce sipping coffee and talking cars and Lucinda brought this up on her phone.  Just like that, guys were staring off into space and remembering autumn of 1959 and the smell of leaves burning in front yards, and cars that had chrome and actual colors and push button transmissions.  And when one would occasionally pull into town from somewhere they’d never been, driven by people who led much more exotic lives than they did.  And who knew enough not to stick around in Fort Stockton any longer than they had to.