No Dominion (The Walker Papers: A Garrison Report) by CE Murphy Page A

applause from the mechanics and laughing approval from Joanie Walker. She even swept a hand over the purple car’s hood in invitation, and one of the mechanics wolf-whistled while another two looked put-out.
    Protocol would be dissembling, but I was already past the end of the rope. I sat on the car’s hood, shoe heels braced on the bumper, and Joanne scooted forward to sit next to me and tsk . “You always this formal, Mike? Shirt sleeves and leather shoes in the middle of July? You obviously haven’t been drinking enough. There’ll be another quiz,” she added, mock-severely, “once you’ve had enough to loosen up that collar.
    “I’ll pass,” I promised her.
    She arched an eyebrow. “The quiz, or on loosening up?”
    “You decide.”
    Her grin came again, slow and long and amused before she took a pull on her beer that emptied the bottle. One of her crew chortled and Joanne threw the bottle at him, not hard. He caught it and offered an un-credible apologetic look. She slid a glance at me, winked, then shrugged innocently at the guy on the ground.
    This was going to be a mistake. I had no business trying to flirt with employees, even if—especially if—they didn’t know I was the boss. But it had been a while since a woman had caught my eye as quickly as Joanne Walker had, and even knowing nothing could come of it, indulging was a rare satisfied temptation.
    I glanced over my shoulder at the long hood of the car we sat on. It was a classic, and every model of classic car I’d ever known slipped out of my mind. “What is this, anyway? A Corvette? A—” I was only certain of one classic Corvette line, and offered it up: “A Stingray, maybe? 1963?”
    Joanne Walker laughed out loud, a bray that sounded delighted, but it faded into jaw-dropped disbelief when she saw I’d meant the question. “Are you serious? Oh my God. You think Petite’s a Corvette ?” She glanced at her crew, most of whom were watching with reserved glee, though the two who’d been irritated by my invitation onto the car’s hood were openly grinning already.
    Walker, all too clearly egged on by their quiet delight, repeated, “Oh my God,” and launched into . “No, Corvettes are curvy, you idiot. I mean, the classic ones are. They came straight out of the fifties, shaped like the women, you know? Hips and boobs, that’s what all those curvy wheel wells are, and the Stingrays had a split back window, swear to God they were supposed to look like a woman’s butt. Petite’s a Mustang, a 1969 Mustang, a muscle car, you moron. Twiggy, not Bettie Page, that’s the kind of model she’s built on. She’s a Boss 305, there were only a few thousand like her made, oh my God , a Corvette, really ? How can you not know this?”
    Stiff with embarrassment, I said, “I was never really in to cars,” and she choked a laugh. “Dude, apparently not even enough to get laid. Didn’t you ever get it on in the back seat of one of these things?”
    “How old do you think I am ?”
    Her eyes narrowed in the instant before she blurted, “Oh, God, I don’t know, like forty-five?” She didn’t think I was anywhere near that old, or she wouldn’t have invited me to sit on the Mustang’s hood in the first place, but she’d put herself on the spot with her own question, and had to upwardly revise whatever she thought the answer really was. And probably downwardly revise it as well, because I’d asked, and I wondered if she’d mentally come up with an answer anywhere close to the truth.
    It still stung, which wasn’t any more appropriate than the smugness I’d felt a few minutes ago. “Not quite.”
    “I guess not , if you don’t know a ‘69 Mustang from ‘63 Stingray. I didn’t think that was actually possible for people with Y chromosomes. Ar—oh, hey, Captain.”
    Nichols walked up, a bowl of potato salad in one hand and a hot dog in the other, and smiled genially around at the Motor Pool crew. “Hi, folks. I see you’ve met