Nicky and the Tin Finge

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This character Nicky Lugan is, from way back, a tinkerer, and since in Udella — which has no more than fifteen thousand people in it — everybody knows everybody, Kopal, on the city desk, wasted no time in shooing me off to interview Nicky when it became evident that a tinkerer had done the dirty to Big George Loke.

“Barney,” Kopal said, “trot on over and talk to this Nicky Lugan. You know him, and you have done features on him; and maybe he likes you — though why, it would be hard to ascertain.”

I used to know Nicky Lugan back in the days when he only had three vending machines. At that time he lived over Venerik’s Garage, and the only time anybody would see Nicky would be when he trotted by, because he covered his three machines on foot, and the money for a bowl of chili for dinner had to be grabbed out of one of the machines.

He still lives over Venerik’s Garage. And he has not changed in the seventeen years it took him to work up from three machines to two hundred and eighteen, the current count. The machines are in nice spots all over the county, and they vend candy, cigarettes, milk, soft drinks and so on. Now Nicky has a guy who makes the repairs and the collections, and it is long since Nicky has trotted from place to place.

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