"All right, buddy, what's so important you couldn't tell me over the phone," Jim asks.
"Trust me, Jim. It's important," Cal says. Cal leads Jim over to a car covered in a sheet. Cal stop looking at Jim in excitement.
"Wait a minute, you're not...you're not telling me that this is—"
"Yep."
"You found it?" Cal pulls the sheet off the car, revealing a silver convertible Porsche, labeled "Little Bastard". Jim sighs and chuckles in awe. Jim shakes his head. "You found it. Huh." Cal folds up the sheet and tosses it aside as Jim inspects the car closer. "Oh my God! You sure?"
"VIN numbers match."
"How much you pay?"
"A lot."
"Come on, how much?" Cal chuckles.
"A lot."
"I bet. Wow." Jim whistles. Cal opens the door and gets into the driver's seat. "Wow. You start her up yet?"
"Been waiting for you."
"Yeah, waiting to rub my nose in it, right?"
"Exactly." He puts his hand on the ignition key.
"Whoa, whoa, wait, wait, wait. We need to record this for posterity's sake."
"Great idea."
"Yeah, great idea." Jim chuckles. "Oh, man." Jim hurries off back into the house. Cal's face drops when he breathes out and notices his breath condense in front of him. Suddenly, the car's radio flicks on of its own volition and jumps rapidly through the stations. Cal tries to correct it with the knobs, but it doesn't work. In the house, Jim finds a video camera and adjusts the settings. He hears tires screeching in the garage, then glass breaking. "Cal? Cal?" He walks back into the garage, video camera held up, recording, but the car is blocked by some shelves. "Hey, you all right, man? I thought I heard something. Cal? Is something wrong?" He walks around to the front of the car, still recording, then stops dead and lowers the camera. "Oh my God, Cal." The windshield, coated in Cal'S blood, is embedded halfway through his skull. Jim screams. "Cal!" Cal's blood runs down the hood and drips onto the Porsche insignia and "Little Bastard" decal.
The Impala drives along an empty road.
"So—" Sam starts, but chuckles instead. "—what's with this job?"
"Dude suffers a head-on collision in a parked car? I'd say that's worth checking out," Dean says.
"That is pretty weird," Fae says.
"Yeah, definitely, uh, but, uh, we got bigger problems, don't you think," Sam asks.
"I'm sure the apocalypse'll still be there when we get back." A pause.
"Right, yeah, but I mean, if—if the Colt is really out there somewhere—"
"Hey, we've been looking for three weeks, we got bupkis."
"Okay. But Dean...I mean, if we're gonna—ice the Devil—"
"This is what we're doing! Okay? End of discussion." Sam looks away and sighs. A long pause. Fae puts a hand on Dean shoulder and made eye contact with him in the review mirror nodding her head towards Sam.
"It's just that this is our first real case, back at it together. You know, I, I think we oughta ease into it, put the training wheels back on."
"So you think I need training wheels."
"No, 'we'. 'We' need training wheels, you, me, and Fae. As a team. Okay?" Sam nods.
"Okay."
"Man, I really want this to be a fresh start, you know? For the both of us." They look at each other, then Sam nods again.
"Okay." The Impala drives along.
THE NEXT DAY
Dean and Sam, wearing suits, show their FBI badges to the Sheriff.
"Agents Bonham, Copeland," Dean says. The sheriff shakes their hands.
"Rick Carnegie. Good to know ya. So you're here on account of Cal Hawkins' death?"
"That's right."
"Well, 'fraid you came a long way for nothing. We already booked the guy that did it." Sam and Dean frown at each other.
"I'm sorry; who do you think did it?" Sam, Dean, and the sheriff are sitting at a table, watching the video that Jim recorded.
"Cal? Is something wrong," ask Jim on the video. The video shows Cal's head smashed into the windshield. "Oh my God, Cal. Cal!" The video cuts to static and the sheriff shakes his head, then switches off the TV. He drops the remote on the table and turns to Dean and Sam.
"Sicko taped his own handiwork." Dean and Sam look confused.
"I don't follow," Sam says.
"It was Jim Grossman that killed Cal," the sheriff says.
"Wait, what," Dean asks.
"Well, he was the only one on the scene for miles," the sheriff says.
"They were best friends," Sam says.
"Most violent crimes are committed by someone close to the victim," the sheriff says.
"And how exactly did Jim slam Cal into a windshield with all the force of an eighty-mile-per-hour crash," Dean asks.
The sheriff blinks and says unsure, "Drugs, maybe?" Dean raises his eyebrows. "Look, you know this ain't brain surgery, boys! Whatever it looks like, that's what it usually is. It's simple."
"Simple. Right." Dean glances over his shoulder at Sam.
"Right. Um, if you don't mind, we'd like to speak to Jim Grossman anyway." Sam is sitting at a table across from Jim, and Dean stands behind Sam.
"I was in the house when it happened, I didn't even see it," Jim says.
"For argument's sake, say we believe you," Dean says.
"Why would you," Jim asks then says, "The cops didn't."
"Well we're not your typical cops," Dean says.
"Please, just tell us what you saw, " Sam says.
"It's not what I saw, it's what I heard. Tires squealing, glass breaking," Jim says and sighs "It was the car that did it." Dean and Sam both raise their eyebrows.
"The car," Sam asks.
"I mean, I heard about the curse, but, I just thought it was a load of crap," Jim says.
"Curse, what do you—what do you mean, curse," Dean asks.
"The car. Little Bastard," Jim says.
"Li—Little Bastard? As in the Little Bastard," Dean asks.
"Wait, wait, wait, wait, uh, what's Little Bastard," Sam asks.
"It's James Dean's car. It's the one he was killed in," Dean says.
"Yeah, that's the one. Cal had been looking for it for years. I mean, hell, we both had. But he found it first." Dean leans closer to Sam.
"Oh, we are definitely checking this out," Dean says.
IMPOUND GARAGE
Dean walks around and inspects Little Bastard with awe, careful not to touch. The windshield is bloodstained and has a piece missing where Cal's head was.
"So, what, this is, like, Christine," Sam asks.
Dean shakes his head, "Christine is fiction. This—This is real."
"Okay," Sam says. "Enlighten me."
"Well after James Dean died, his mechanic—bought the wreckage, and he fixed it up and it repaid him by falling on him. And Tony McHenry was killed when it locked up on the racetrack. I mean, death follows this car around like exhaust. Nobody touches it and comes away in one piece."
"Hm," Sam says.
"Then, in nineteen-seventy, it vanished off the back of a truck. Nobody's ever seen it since. I'm telling you, man, if this—if this car is Little Bastard, I will bet you dollars to donuts it's what killed the guy."
"How do we find out," Fae asks coming up behind Sam making him jump slightly.
"Cal matched the VIN number, but the only real way to know is the engine number," Dean says. Sam and Fae nod.
"I'm guessing the engine number—," Sam started to ask.
"On the engine. Yeah," Dean says. Dean and Sam have their jackets off and sleeves rolled up and are staring at Little Bastard with trepidation.
"You want me to do it," asks Sam.
"No. ...No, no, I've—I've got it, " Dean says. Dean addresses Little Bastard. "Okay, baby. I'm not gonna hurt you, so...don't hurt me." Dean lies down on a roller board with a pencil in his mouth, then rolls himself under the car so his eyes are level with a number printed on the engine. He reads the number when the car shudders and Dean panics, looking around. Sam appears on the ground next to the car.
"Need a flashlight," Sam asks. Dean startles.
"No. Don't...do anything, just go away," Dean says.
"You—uh, okay," Sam says.
"Don't speak. All right? In fact, don't even look at her, she might not like it, " Dean says. Sam, stands back up. DEAN holds a piece of paper up to the engine's number. The car shudders again and Dean hesitates, then cautiously takes a rubbing of the number on the piece of paper with the pencil. He slides out from under the car, exhaling deeply, then stands up quickly. Dean composes himself, then hands Sam the number. "Find out who owned it. Not just the last owner, you gotta take it all the way back to nineteen-fifty-five."
"That's a lot of research," Sam says.
"Well, I guess I just made your afternoon," Dean says. Sam stares. Dean sighs and walks away.
"Hey, Sam I'll help you with the research."
"Yeah uh thanks Fae."
Dean sits at the bar, talking to a bartender.
"So, you wanna be an actress, huh," Dean asks.
"Yeah," the bartender says.
"That is—that is so funny, because, I am actually—" Dean takes out a business card. "—an agent for William Morris Endeavor." She takes the card.
"Wow," the bartender says. Dean chuckles as his cell phone rings. He indicates his empty beer glass.
"You mind filling me up again," Dean asks.
"Yeah," the bartender says.
"Thanks, hey, you're a star. All right," Dean says smiling at her flirtatiously. She giggles, takes the glass and walks away as Dean answers the call.
PHONE CONVERSATION BETWEEN SAM, DEAN, AND FAE:
DEAN
Yo.
SAM
Hey. Took me a while, but I traced all the car's previous owners.
Sam and Fae are sitting at his laptop, piles of paper spread around.
DEAN
Any of 'em die bloody?
SAM
Nope. In fact—
Someone near Dean breaks a triangle of pool balls. Sam hears this.
SAM
Dean, are you in a bar?
DEAN
No, I—I'm—I'm in a restaurant.
The Bartender returns and places Dean's beer on the bar.
"Here's your beer," the bartender says and grins.
DEAN
Thanks.
He takes the beer as the bartender walks away and Sam shakes his head.
DEAN
That happens to have a bar.
SAM
Fae and I have been working our asses off here.
DEAN
Hey, world's smallest violin, pal, I spent the afternoon up Christine's skirt. I needed a drink.
SAM
Actually, you didn't.
DEAN
Meaning?
Fae
The car's first owner was a cardiologist in Philadelphia; drove it 'til he died in nineteen-seventy-two.
DEAN
So you're saying?
Fae
That Porsche is not, nor has it ever been, James Dean's car. It's a fake Little Bastard.
DEAN
Well then what was it that killed the guy?
SAM
Good question.