32 Cadillacs (28 page)

Without qualms, M. Bascom led her solicitously to the door. One teardrop was missing, a stone valued at $7,000, but she could
not have taken it. She was, after all, very wealthy in her own right; and she had been in her swoon at the very moment the
diamonds had become vulnerable. Staff was still looking, probably it had rolled under some distant display case…

Dona Dulcinea gave M. Bascom her hand to kiss and flashed her big round eyes at him. “If it is not found by tomorrow when
I return, I mus’ pay for the diamon’ who is missing!”

“No need, madam,” said Bascom gallantly. “It will turn up.”

“But I insist—and I have just decide. Tomorrow, I weel buy
ten
of the teardrops!”

At the curb was her beautiful cream and grey Fleetwood Sixty Special four-door sedan. A grey-haired heavy-jawed man, obviously
her hired driver, was doing something under the dash. But as Bascom reached out to open the door for the
dona
, the man started the Caddy and accelerated away into traffic without a backward turn of his head.

Leaving Bascom on the curb with his hand outstretched and his mouth, for once, hanging open in utter astonishment. He turned
to Dona Dulcinea for enlightenment, and was even more astounded to see the Brazilian heiress running out into Rodeo Drive,
skirts flying, face contorted, vapors forgotten.

“You son of a bitch!” the
dona
screamed after the departing Fleetwood. “I know who you are, faggot repo bastard! I curse your eyes and the eyes of your
children! I spit into…”

Dona Dulcinea caught herself, realizing the figure she was cutting, and turned back to the curb with an embarrassed little
moue
. But her accent had derived from no farther south than, say, South Jersey, and, since diamonds were involved, this stripped
off a good bit of Bascom’s veneer. His shit-kicker granddaddy had come west from Ada, Oklahoma, during the dustbowl ’30s,
after all, to get land-rich during the postwar California ’50s, and Mama Bascom hadn’t raised no fools.

So Immaculata Bimbai spent two most uncomfortable hours in
Bascom’s
office with Bascom himself and a brace of Beverly Hills cops, during which time it was discovered that the Beevairly Weel-sheer
had never heard of her
or
the bellhop, and that the boxes he had been carting around all day were empty.

But finally they had to let Immaculata go, along with her young servant man. Lying to a jeweler, even a Beverly Hills jeweler,
is no crime, and she was getting vocal in the way only a
rom
woman can while extricating herself from trouble. Most importantly of all, however, a separate strip search of her and her
son—the cops never uncovered their real names or relationship—could not turn up the missing
bijou
.

So Immaculata came away scot-free; it was her son Lazlo who had a few bad hours in their West Hollywood motel. He ate many
a slice of Wonder thin sandwich bread to coat the swallowed diamond on its way through his intestines, and brought forth just
about the time Peter Jennings did the same with the evening news.

They cleaned up the teardrop and admired it, a wonderful $7,000 score; but their elation was tempered by the loss of their
lovely loaded $50,000 Fleetwood Sixty Special. Not even all of Immaculata’s Gypsy curses could bring
that
back again.

*   *   *

Just about the time Lazlo swallowed the diamond, O’B poured beer for Ballard at Ginsberg’s Dublin Pub on Bay Street up in
San Francisco. Under cover of CCR’s “Bad Moon Rising” on the juke, O’B was pleading, actually pleading, for assistance, which
gave Ballard a wonderful chance to be sanctimonious.

“Absolutely not,” he said, not for the first time, “I am not going out to Oriente Street with you, and that’s final.”

“But Larry…” O’B again plied Ballard with beer. “Think of all the times I’ve helped you out—”

“All the times you’ve got me in trouble, you mean. No! I keep telling you, O’B, since we got no plate numbers you gotta check
those Gyppo serial numbers
before
you grab the cars!”

Conveniently forgetting he had done the very same thing on the Sonia Lovari Allante. But
that
had been the right Caddy.

“There just wasn’t time, Larry. It was squatting right on the address. You know I usually always make sure before I—”

“Usually always,” said Ballard, then added, “Fairfield.”

In Fairfield late one St. Paddy’s Day, a tipsy O’B had grabbed a hearse while Ballard was inside the mortuary learning the
undertaker had just caught up the payments. Even worse, O’B hadn’t checked the rear of the vehicle…

“The guy paid with a rubber check,” said O’B virtuously. “And we dumped that personal property at Eternal—”

“I don’t want to hear about it. The answer is still no.”

Actually, there was a certain logic to Ballard’s refusal. Returning the car could get messy, and a cryptic message from Yana
at the DKA office meant that tonight he was getting his fortune told. And maybe getting some other treasure besides?

“Paul Bunyan really tried to kill me, Larry. I go back out there alone, and…” O’B drew a slicing hand across his throat.

Two beers later, Ballard relented, drove O’B back to the storage lot, and helped get the Eldorado started. He even found another
bucket to sit on—gingerly, his lacerated butt was still sore—so they could plan strategy while riding out to the Portola District
together. He considered it simple.

“If he isn’t around, we just drop it at the curb and run.”

“If he
is
around, we hit him on the head with a tire iron until we get his attention.”

“He can’t be
that
big and tough, O’B.”

“Bigger,” said O’B. “Tougher.”

*   *   *

They couldn’t ease the Eldorado back to the curb exactly where O’B had gotten it, because another car was parked there. You
guessed it. Another brand-new Eldorado. With paper plates.

“
That’s Yonkovich’s car!
” bellowed O’B as they came rattling, clunking, banging, and thunking up the street. “
I’m sure of it!
”

“
Maybe
,” Ballard yelled back cautiously over the din.

O’B shouted, “
In your heart you know that it’s the
—”

“
It’s nice to sneak up on him this way!
” shrieked Ballard.

O’B eased the totaled Eldorado to the curb in front of the house being torn down a few doors away from Yonkovich’s place.
He killed the engine. Ballard rubbed his tortured ears.

“I’ll check the I.D., you run the keys,” he said firmly.

O’B responded weakly, “Oh Jesus Christ!”

Ballard turned to follow his stricken gaze. Thundering down the front steps of the half-demolished house was the biggest biped
he’d ever seen outside 49ers game days at Candlestick Park. Before they could move he was upon them, engulfing O’B’s right
hand in his own, roughly the size of a Virginia ham, and pumping it up and down with great energy.

“Geez, am I glad to see you! I really gotta apologize.” He turned to include Ballard in his remarks. “I got this terrible
temper, see—”

“I wouldn’t have known that,” said O’B mildly, trying to massage feeling back into his fingers. “Anyway, no harm done. At
least, not to me…”

By this time, Paul Bunyan was examining his car with professional interest, hands on hips, shaking his head fondly.

“Geez, see what I mean? My dam’ temper. I roont it.” He turned back to O’B. “Called the friggin’ bank soon’s you was gone
an’ I calmed down. Tol’ ’em I was sorry they hadda send somebody—got so much demolition work goin’ on around town I just dead
forgot to make the payments. Tol’ ’em I was payin’ it off—penance, y’see what I mean? Authorized a transfer right on the phone.
They said they’d check an’ get you right back out here with the car, an’ here you are.”

O’B cleared his throat. “You, ah, was this, ah… I mean, which bank did you…”

“B of A, of course. Dumbbutt I talked to didn’t even know they’d sent you out after it, but that’s okay. Here you are an’
here it is.” Paul Bunyan laughed a great laugh. “Yeah, here it is! Jeez, here it is!”

Ballard opened his mouth to say something, then shut it again. What was there to say? Luck of the Irish?

“Couple days, I call the insurance company an’ say it was stole. Cops get it on the hotsheet, find it parked somewhere, like
this…” His massive head suddenly swung toward them, his brows drawing down frightfully. “ Less you got some moral qualms
’bout sticking it to the insurance company…”

They protested qualmlessness with upraised palms. Paul Bunyan laughed and nodded and again hoped O’B had no hard feelings
and again shook hands with both of them. Then he turned and nodded at the other Eldorado. And laughed again.

“Same freakin’ car, ’cept for the color.”

O’B said smoothly, “And would you believe, sir, that we also have a repossession order on that very car? That’s why I brought
my colleague with me when I came back…”

“No kiddin’!” He almost collapsed into helpless laughter as they walked over to the Gyppo Caddy. “How the hell you gonna tell
it’s the right one, without a license plate on it yet?”

“I.D. number,” said Ballard, this time very firmly.

And began checking it. As O’B began working his keys on the locked door.

“Right car,” said Ballard.

But he used a desperate
sotto voce
because the door of the house had burst open and seven obviously Gypsy males were running clown the walk at them. And still
the keys stubbornly refused to work here in the right car, when they had perversely worked fine in Paul Bunyan’s
wrong
car.

Ballard went into a defensive stance, but Paul Bunyan stepped in front of him to pluck the Gypsies’ obvious ringleader from
the ground with one hand, and shake him. The man’s eyes bounced around in his head, his hands flapped at the ends of his arms
like clothespins on a line. The other Gypsies faded back.

“
You owe the bank on that car?
” roared Paul Bunyan.

“Yee .. ee .. ee .. ees… sss… sssirrrrr…”

“
Then you give that man the keys, y’hear what I’m sayin’?
”

He slammed Yonkovich back down on his feet like slamming a beer mug back on a table. Tucon dug through his pockets with shaking
fingers to find the keys and give them to O’B.

Using them, O’B asked, “Any personal possessions in here?”

Yonkovich shook his head mutely. Perhaps all of his voice had been shaken out of him with “Yessir.” O’B gave Ballard the keys
to his company car, knowing Ballard would figure it was parked around the corner out of sight.

He paused to shake hands with the hulking demolition man. “Thanks for savings our butts, Mr.… er…”

“My pleasure!” roared Paul Bunyan. “I hate the kinda deadbeat s.o.b.s get their cars repossessed!”

Luck of the Irish, thought Ballard fatalistically as he trudged away to get O’B’s car and drive it back downtown.

T
hat same evening, back in Iowa, the first tentative bands of Gypsies were gathering around the edges of Stupidville like rime
ice at the edges of a pond at the first freeze of winter. No ice crackled in the corridors of the Stupidville General Hospital,
not yet, but it was coming. Oh, it was coming.

Inside the hospital, Barney Hawkins, Democrat National Assurance Company’s adjuster, was red in the face as he strode up and
down Staley Zlachi’s room with short, jerky steps. Veins swelled dangerously along the sides of his neck. His suit coat was
thrown across the empty other bed. Sweat mooned his armpits.

“Lissen,
Klenhard
”—his voice made the word an epithet—“you know an’ I know you’re faking it, but—”

“Not by the reflex tests,” said Lulu calmly from her chair by the window. “You watch ’em yourself, mister—by them, my Karl,
he got no feeling in his legs.”

As for Staley, he said nothing. In his Klenhard persona he lay on his back under the blankets with his eyes closed.

“Goddammit, man! Are you even listening—”

“You’ll bring on another attack,” warned Lulu.

Hawkins stopped in the middle of the floor and bent over almost double, like a man in pain. He finally straightened up and
sighed deeply. “Look, I know you’ve got some shyster lawyer you won’t even tell me his name, but I’ve made a good offer—”

“Fifteen thousand,” said Lulu in disdain. “For my Karl living the rest of his days precarious-like, in pain and possible danger
of being paralyzed forever?”

“Twenty.”

Lulu didn’t even deign to reply. Hawkins’s face became scarlet again. With visible effort he got control.

“You’re nothing, you know. Shit on a stick. But I wanta get you off the books because I have some really important cases piling
up. So I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll go to the absolute limit.” He lowered his voice. Staley opened an eye to squint at
him. “I’ll go to twenty-five thousand.” Hawkins pasted a smile on his face. “And I’m a man of my word. Twenty-five thousand,
I got the papers in my briefcase, you can—”

“Seventy-five,” said Staley. And closed the eye again.

“And not a penny less,” chimed in Lulu instantly.

Hawkins snatched up his jacket and stormed out. In the hall he yelled, “
I’ll see you both in hell before I go one cent over twenty-five!
” As he charged off and the door slowly shut on its pneumatic closer, his voice got smaller and smaller like a Louis L’Amour
hero riding off into the sunset. “
Crazy bastards think… wouldn’t give my
mother
a seventy-five-K settlement
…”

Staley threw back the bedclothes and slid his bare feet to the floor. He began striding up and down the narrow room, his crumpled
white hospital gown fluttering open behind him.

“Are the
rom
gathering?”

Lulu nodded, then frowned. “Yes. I’m keeping them away from the hospital—you’re too sick to see them. But…”

“But you’re right, Lulu darling. We can’t stall them much longer. Guess it’s time to settle with Hawkins.”