Rant: The Oral History of Buster Casey

Shot Dunyun (Party Crasher): Me, my focus is providing the music for a perfect night of Party Crashing. But, no bullshit, I'd love to be a Hit Man. A night a while back, I watched some Hit Man scrape every inch of paint off the body of a half-million-dollar Saleen S7. A car with three and one-half inches of ground clearance, and the driver raced it off-road. That's beyond sadistic.

Lynn Coffey: That people hired a Hit Man demonstrated their love for a particular vehicle. An owner might want a Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud or Silver Shadow destroyed, but said owner could never, by his own hand, defile such a beautiful automobile.

Tina Something: One point, a Jaguar X-Type, Wax says, "Can you believe this?" He slams the heel of one hand, bam, on the leather steering wheel, saying, "Can you fucking believe this tightwad! Cheaped out and settled for the Tobago wheels, not the Proteus, not even the Cayman wheels." Nailing the gas, Wax popped the right front wheel up on the sidewalk, just long enough to flatten one of those steel-plate mailboxes, exploding sparks and paint chips and white envelopes, before the wheel thuds into the gutter, the speedo never needling below forty.

Lynn Coffey: Among other things, Waxman would accept payment for disposing of luxury cars. Typically, cars about to be lost in a messy divorce decree. Or vehicles the owner could no longer afford to make payments on. Or simply insurance fraud. Or spite.

A certain go-between would pass Waxman the keys and an envelope of cash, typically two or three hundred dollars, then tell Waxman where to find the vehicle. The owner would leave town, establishing an alibi for the two or three days during which Waxman might joyride. By the time the owner returned to report the vehicle stolen, Waxman would've ditched it somewhere it wouldn't be found.

Shot Dunyun: No bullshit, but I've watched people stop in the middle of a funeral, the dead body smiling there in the casket, the old ladies sobbing, and people stop to change the music. Mozart instead of Schumann. Music is crucial.

Beyond no way can I overstress this fact.

Let's say you're southbound on the interstate, cruising along in the middle lane, listening to AM radio. Up alongside comes a tractor trailer of logs or concrete pipe, a tie-down strap breaks, and the load dumps on top of your little sheetmetal ride. Crushed under a world of concrete, you're sandwiched like so much meat salad between layers of steel and glass. In that last, fast flutter of your eyelids, you looking down that long tunnel toward the bright God Light and your dead grandma walking up to hug you—do you want to be hearing another radio commercial for a mega, clearance, close-out, blow-out liquidation car-stereo sale?

Tina Something: Another point, could be our third date, a Dodge Viper, Wax got going about how his clients always wash and wax the car, detailing every inch, before they turn over the cash and keys. "It's like watching those actresses," he tells me, "those women who get their hair done, colored and curled, and their fingernails manicured and their legs shaved smooth and tanned, all that fuss just to appear in a gang-bang porn video."

Wax steered that Viper down a flight of those concrete stairs in the park, leaving a long trail of our exhaust system and suspension, saying, "Baby, I could just cry over those perfect manicured fingernails if they weren't so fucking stupid."

Shot Dunyun: No bullshit. If your car skids into oncoming traffic, and you die listening to The Archies sing "Sugar Sugar," it's your own damn laziness.

Lynn Coffey: Certain Party Crashers you could tell were Hit Men or Hit Women. If their vehicle was always pristine—even a Chevette or a Pinto, always showroom perfect and polished. If their decoration was minimal, nothing except the basic flag. And if they readily drove over curbs, sideswiped concrete traffic barriers. From that you could deduce their wheels had been someone's dream gone awry. A lovely mistress or trophy the owner didn't want another person to ever own.

Jarrell Moore: Other fouls you can call include tagging off-limits areas of the target. No T-boning—that's a head-on impact against the side of your target. No angling to ram anywhere on the sidewalls between the front and rear axles.

Tina Something: For Rant and Wax, it irked them both that ancient mountains and forests were being sliced up to provide affordable granite countertops in tract houses, or Peruvian-rosewood dash panels in luxury cars no one would drive.