Джо Горес - Dead skip

“The Lone Ranger and Tonto,” said Kearny in a totally unexcited voice.

The driver was a woman, with the street light back-lighting her blond hair and casting her features into darkness. The door on the rider’s side flew open as the car skidded to a stop. A dark figure hit the concrete running, charging them. Ballard’s heart seemed to stop.

“He’s got a gun,” he heard himself say in a tight, desperately calm voice. “Dan, he’s got a gun...”

It was a monkey wrench.

For the first time Ballard knew why Kearny had such strictures against carrying guns on the job. If he’d had one, he would have used it before realizing that Odum was technically unarmed.

Odum skidded to a stop ten feet away, as if disconcerted that neither of them had run. He was short, burly, very pale, with shaggy hair and glasses thick enough to bottle Cokes in. Tall? thought Ballard. Handsome? Suave? This cat?

“Who...” Odum stopped and cleared his throat. His voice had come out funny. He was scared shitless. “Who in hell are you?”

Kearny took the play away from him. “Are you Charles M. Griffin?”

“Well, no, I...”

“Then it doesn’t matter who the hell we are.”

Ballard loved to watch him work, take the offensive, push the antagonist in the direction he wanted him to go. Right now he was turning back to the car, leaving Odum with only a broad back in a business suit to argue with.

“I... what... why the hell did you take this car?” Odum demanded. His girl friend was still in the Toronado, still just a dark shape with the halo of back-lit blond hair.

Kearny turned back to the ex-con. He repeated, in the same harsh tones as before, “Are you Charles M. Griffin?”

“I already told you I wasn’t. But—”

“Then it doesn’t matter why the hell we took this car.”

He turned away again. Odum was emboldened enough to step toward him. Ballard came around the front of the car, fast, fists clenched, but Odum, despite the wrench, wasn’t after trouble.

“Well, look, you guys, I... ah... paid three hundred bucks for the equity in this car. Cash. You can’t just—”

“We already have.” Kearny turned back, leaned casually against the door with his arms folded, like a farmer talking about crops. “You may as well clear your personal crap out and give us the keys.”

“But it’s my car,” said Odum desperately.

“It can’t be your car.” Kearny’s voice was patient, reasonable; daddy telling junior about the birds and the bees in words he could understand. “This car belongs to California Citizens Bank and is registered to a Mr. Charles M. Griffin. You aren’t either one of ’em.”

“But I gave the guy three hundred bucks—”

Kearny leaned forward, arms still folded, but by the sudden tension in his voice and body, compelling response. “Griffin?”

Odum was blinking rapidly, as if he were going to cry. “Yeah. That guy. Gloria can vouch—”

“What Gloria says has no validity in a court of law,” Kearny said coldly. “Gloria who?”

“Court of law?” Odum’s voice was stricken. “Uh... Gloria Rouse. She, uh... listen, court of...”

“The woman in the Toronado?”

“Uh... yeah.”

“Mm-hmmm.” Kearny said it as if a dark suspicion had just been confirmed. “She resides at 1-9-0-2 Gavallo Road, Apartment Seven?”

From the stall in which the yellow Toronado had been parked, of course. That cool bastard must have noted the make of car in each stall just walking by, automatically, probably not even aware that his brain was doing it. Ballard couldn’t have given him the make of any of those cars. Not one.

“Yah... uh, yes. Sir.”

Sir , added belatedly. Odum, sitting in the straight-backed chair by Saul Savidge’s ancient wooden desk, getting told the facts of a parolee’s life. Did those showers really leak down on the more comfortable swivel chair, or was that just a subtle ploy of Savidge’s? Yes, sir. Then Ballard thought angrily to himself: Pity for this shithead? Who maybe had broken Bart’s skull, maybe even with the wrench now dangling forgotten and useless at the end of his arm like the tuft on a jackass’s tail?

“You’ve been living with Gloria Rouse at this address since last Tuesday in clear violation of the conditions of your parole. What sort of explanation can you give for this?”

«I...»

His eyes were darting from one to the other, seeking a soft spot. Ballard kept silent, put on his stoniest expression. The normal expression on Kearny’s granite features was stony enough.

“I... none, sir.”

“All right.” Kearny made it sound as if he were bestowing a great favor. He turned to Ballard. “Mr. Beam, did Mr. Savidge say anything today about this Thunderbird?”

Ballard hoped he was reading Kearny’s lead the right way. “He seemed extremely upset when I told him that the subject might be driving a car, contrary to the conditions of his parole.”

“There you are,” said Kearny with great finality.

Odum shuffled his feet. “Ah, look, I mean, I hadn’t gotten around to telling him yet, but, I... look, this week I’ll...”

“The car isn’t yours anyway.”

“But I paid three hundred—”

“Where’d you get that from? Kite some more paper?”

“Jesus!” he yelped. “No!”

He said it loud enough to bring the woman out of the car; she wouldn’t have been able to hear anything that had gone before. Now she just stood beside it, silent, undecided.

“Does she know about you and Sharon Beaghler?” asked Kearny relentlessly, just too low for her to hear.

Odum automatically glanced back at the Toronado. Seeing her standing beside it, he made almost hysterical waving-away motions with both open hands. She hesitated, finally got back into the car. Which was, Ballard knew, what Kearny had wanted. A cardinal rule of investigating was never to make a man seem unnecessarily foolish or weak in front of his woman. Pride might stiffen otherwise dormant resistance.

Now Kearny laid a comforting hand on the small man’s shoulder. “Mr. Odum, we think you’ve been victimized by an unscrupulous con artist.”

“But he gave me a bill of sale and the white—”

“You have those with you?”

“Right here in my wallet...” He laid down the monkey wrench on the pavement, got out and riffled through his wallet until he came up with a much-folded rectangle of brown paper that looked like wrapping paper. He also had the white slip for the car — the registration slip which in California designates the registered as opposed to the legal owner of a vehicle.

“See...” Odum’s blunt cracked fingernail traced the hand-lettered bill of sale and the slanting backhand scrawl, Charles M. Griffin.

Kearny looked at him sharply, for a moment not playacting for effect. “Didn’t it strike you as odd that he’d give you this sort of butcher-paper receipt and a five-thou car and the white slip for only three hundred bucks? Didn’t you suspect that maybe it was hot?”

“He... ah...” The eyes moved uneasily behind their thick glasses. “He said a new payment book would be mailed to me from the bank. You know, after the transfer of title was recorded, like. I was just s’posed to keep up the payments, and... well, see, I was s’posed to send in another two hundred bucks or so, besides the three I give him. That was to pick up those February and March payments, like...”

“But you didn’t.”

“I... ran short...”

“What did you figure he was going to do when the bank kept on chasing him for the payments?”

The eyes moved again, nervously, from Ballard to Kearny to the car and back again. He cleared his throat. “Well, ah, see, I was getting his mail, right? And he said he was leaving the country for a year or so, soon as he got the car sold off. So I figured I just wouldn’t send those notices on to him when he, ah, you know, sent me his forwarding address...”