Joe Gores - 32 Cadillacs

“Call him, tell him we need a contract spelling out the terms exactly. They’re desperate now, but if we start turning these babies they’re going to think it’s easy and start wanting to cut that recovery percentage fee.”

“You’re godfather of Stan’s daughter, for Pete sake. He wouldn’t try to—”

“Stan is just a unit president, he doesn’t run the bank. So do it. And get a guarantee of exclusivity, too. If recovery is slow , we don’t want some flunky VP to panic and start shoveling out these assignments to other agencies. We gotta hit the Gyppos hard and fast, get all we can before they realize we’re after ’em — ’cause once they do, they’re gonna disappear into the woodwork.” He was pacing again, thoughtfully. “We got that Gypsy informant with the letter drop down in L. A....”

“The one calls himself Ephrem Poteet? He just wants to get back at other Gypsies he imagines have done something to him.”

“Listen, at least one of our thirty-one is just sure to of stuck a finger in his eye sometime. Send him a list of all the cars — motor I.D. numbers, color, and model — plus the names they were purchased under. Send it fast mail, okay? Overnight. Tell him a... oh, a hundred bucks per recovery we make off his information — and stick in a fifty-buck bill to prime the pump. Then run some extra copies of Stan’s list—”

“For our affiliates around the country?”

He shook his head, pulling down the corners of his mouth.

“Put this info into the hands of other agencies, and it’d be open season on every new Cadillac with paper plates between here and Key West. I want it in-shop only. Don’t even memo our own branch offices on this one for the time being.”

“Getting a little paranoid, aren’t we, Dan’l?”

“Ever think how often paranoiacs are right?”

Well, yes, paranoia, come to think of it, was part of this business. An operating asset, as it were. Kearny’s moment of hesitation, or introspection, or whatever it was, had passed; he was his old hard-driving self again. The lump suddenly was gone from the pit of her stomach. Kearny was on his feet.

“We’ll use this office as command headquarters.” He bent to smear out his butt, then banged his hand on one of the filing cabinets that had held the laundry’s paperwork. It echoed hollowly. “Keep the case files in these babies, plug in some phones, bring up a computer terminal and one of the printers. Everything centralized so the field men can have easy access.”

“Will all of the field men be on this, or—”

“No. Regular business is picking up again and some of our people will have to cover that.” He looked at his watch. “I want you, O’B, Heslip, and Ballard here at five-thirty for a headbanger. Spaghetti feed afterward at the New Pisa...”

Surprising herself with a sudden rush of feminine emotion, Giselle began, “Dan, Larry’s head is still—”

“I want Ballard here if he has to come in carrying his head under his goddam arm, you got that?”

“Yessir,” she said immediately and meekly. Why push her luck? She’d gotten what she wanted: she was going to be out in the field playing with the big guys on this one.

“Why are we so sure they’re Gyppos, Dan?” asked Heslip.

It was nearly 6:00 P.M. Giselle, O’B, Heslip, and Kearny were in the disused upstairs reception area for the headbanger. Ballard of the shiny red forehead was supposed to be on his way in. Kearny had announced they were going after a band of Gypsies and had outlined the scams used against the bank. Man, not just one or two Gyppos, but thirty-one of the mothers.

“Because of the names,” said Giselle.

O’B was frowning. “Grimaldi isn’t Gypsy, it’s not even one of their usual phonies. Since he’s the guy who set up the bank accounts—”

“But look at the others.” Kearny was flipping through the list of names under which the Cadillacs had been conned out of the dealerships. “Gregory Kaslov. Kaslov is a Gypsy name. Stokes. Often a Gypsy pseudonym. Sally Poluth. Gypsy all the way. Tibo Tene? You can hear the tambourines. Yonkovich... Demetro... Petulengro... all Gyppo tribal names.” He was flipping faster now, selecting pseudonyms the Gypsies habitually stole from the straight populace. “Hell, listen to these. Adams, Evans, Green, Miller, Mitchell, Steve, Stokes, Wells...”

Man, Heslip thought, this was big . No wonder Dan wanted Ballard there. Larry’d worked that Gypsy mitt-reader down in Palm Desert, who’d put that curse on him; and when the state had been trying to take away DKa’s license, Larry’d gotten something going with that Gyppo crystal-ball gazer up in Santa Rosa...

A tall form at the head of the stairs said in a sepulchral voice, “Neither rain nor sleet nor dark of night—”

“I didn’t know we was gonna do this in blackface.”

“Whadda you mean ‘we,’ white man?”

Ballard’s two blackened eyes were staring pointedly at the white bandage still around Heslip’s head. Sooty calipers extended down on either side of Ballard’s nose to the corners of his mouth. His forehead was just one large purple bruise.

“You look like you need a slice of watermelon,” said Heslip judiciously.

“You’re late,” said Kearny coldly.

“Why am I here at all?” said Ballard cautiously.

“Gypsies,” said Giselle without inflection.

When she’d called to tell Ballard there was a meeting he had to get to, she hadn’t told him what it was for. She knew her Larry. Curiosity would bring him in like nothing else would.

“Thirty-one Gypsies,” said Heslip.

“Aha,” said Ballard. Something besides fatigue gleamed in his eyes. He took off his topcoat and tossed it on the desktop.

Kearny said, “ Thirty-one Gyppos who conned the dealers out of thirty-one Cadillacs. All financed through Cal-Cit Bank.”

Ballard sat down between Heslip and O’B. They all listened while Kearny sketched out what he had already told the others.

“I bet poor old Stan wishes he’d died in the quake,” said Ballard. “How’d they work the downs?”

“A smooth and handsome guy looks like Omar Sharif in his movie-idol days shows up at Cal-Cit Main and approaches a woman AVP,” said Kearny. “He’s out from New York looking for investments, so he opens an eleven-thousand-dollar business account. Makes sure there’ll be no trouble to make an unannounced ten-thousand-dollar cash withdrawal if he gets a good ‘investment opportunity’ — you with me so far?”

Ballard nodded. “Sure. Then, from what you tell me, he goes and opens three more accounts in three branch banks—”

“For a thousand each.”

Somehow a drink had materialized in O’b’s hand. “So last Friday people with ethnic names start going into the dealers and snapping up Caddies and making the downs with checks drawn on those Cal-Cit accounts. Starting in the City and then moving to Marin and then East Bay and then San Jose just at bank-close.”

“Damn, that’s clever,” said Ballard admiringly.

“He closes the accounts out in order, too,” said Heslip. “ After the calls come in to confirm there’s enough money in each account to cover the downs on the cars in that area, but before any checks can actually be presented for collection.”

“Why doesn’t the bank just charge ’em with felony fraud and get the cops involved?”

“He’s too smart for that,” said Kearny. “He doesn’t really close out the accounts. He pulls ten grand — in cash — from Cal-Cit Main but he leaves a grand behind. Deposits the ten K in each account in turn; then, a couple of hours later, after the queries on the accounts’ status have all come in, pulls it out again. Leaving the original thousand behind in each case.”