Editing Crucible:Overcoat's Crime Car

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= Overcoat's Crime Car =
Overcoat owns an ancient Chevy Bel Air that he proudly calls the Crime Car, though almost no one else uses the name without irony. The car is battered, loud, oversized, and painted a disreputable shade of purple that looks less like a custom finish than the result of several bad decisions made in a poorly ventilated garage. Overcoat insists the color has “character.” Most observers use less generous words.

To Overcoat, the Crime Car is not merely transportation. It is a home, an office, a lookout post, a rolling supply closet, and, on more than one occasion, a bedroom. During leaner periods of his crimefighting career, he has lived out of the car for weeks at a time, keeping spare clothes, canned food, notebooks, flashlights, cheap surveillance gear, old case files, and several unidentifiable tools in the trunk. He refuses to sell it, replace it, or even discuss the possibility. Whenever anyone points out its age, unreliability, or deeply suspicious smell, Overcoat simply describes it as “a classic.”

The Crime Car is a familiar sight in New York’s stranger neighborhoods, usually arriving with a cough of exhaust, a squeal of brakes, and Overcoat leaning forward over the wheel as if personally willing the vehicle through traffic. It has carried him to crime scenes, stakeouts, monster sightings, occult disturbances, missing-person leads, rooftop accesses, abandoned warehouses, and more than one location where a sensible person would have called the police and stayed home.

Despite its shabby appearance, the Crime Car is not quite the wreck it pretends to be. Overcoat’s friend and ally Manhunter has taken pity on the vehicle over the years and made several significant upgrades. The engine has been rebuilt and tuned far beyond its original specifications, giving the old Bel Air surprising speed when it can be persuaded to cooperate. Manhunter has also reinforced the frame, improved the suspension, upgraded the brakes, modernized the electrical system, and added a few discreet crimefighting conveniences, including a police-band scanner, encrypted radio, hidden storage compartments, reinforced door panels, and a trunk latch that can be opened from the inside for reasons Overcoat declines to explain.

The result is a car that looks like it should be abandoned on the shoulder of the highway, but can still roar through a midnight chase when necessary. It remains dented, eccentric, and faintly ridiculous, but it has survived gunfire, collisions, explosions, supernatural incidents, and Overcoat’s driving. In its own disreputable way, the Crime Car has become part of his legend: unkempt, stubborn, half-impossible to kill, and always turning up exactly where trouble is about to get worse.

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[[Category:Technology]]
[[Category:Night Shift]]
[[Category:Steve Mancuso]]
[[Category:Modern Age]]
[[Category:Bronze Age]]