Joe Gores - 32 Cadillacs

“I still ask, why bother?”

“Rudolph will use them to panic us into moving the pink Cadillac. He thinks then he can take it away from us and present it to the King as his own.”

Ristik’s eyes flashed. He shook a rigid forefinger at the ceiling. “He will not take it! Not while there is life in—”

Yana giggled.

“Thank you, Cornel Wilde. Or maybe Victor Mature?”

Ristik looked sheepish. “Okay. But if he thinks—”

The street buzzer sounded.

Ristik opened the door to stare up at the blond man who said, “I want to see Madame Miseria.”

Ristik was glad that through habit he had centered himself in the doorway when he opened it. This guy looked like a cop. Yana didn’t need any cops sucking around with their hands out or their backs up, not with Teddy White responding so great. So Ristik’s usually bright snapping eyes went dull with stupidity, his gutturals became thick as engine grease.

“Madame Miseria is not here.”

He tried to shut the door, but the blond man’s shoe was in it. Ristik raised his voice for the benefit of Yana waiting behind the curtain at the head of the stairs.

“You need a warrant to —”

“I’m no cop.”

No cop. That made it easy. He tried to shut the door again. The foot had not moved. He put on his best threatening look. The tall blond man put contempt in his voice.

“You Yana’s husband?”

Ristik was surprised; few gadje knew his sister’s rom name.

“I know of no one by the name of Yana.”

“Then lemme see your license for this mitt-camp.” *

“You said you were not police.”

“I lied.”

“Let me see your badge.”

That’s when Yana called from the head of the stairs, “Ramon. It is all right. Let him come up.”

Ballard hadn’t been sure he’d played it right, but here he was trudging up the stairs after the Gyp who had answered the door. And there at the head of the stairs staring down at him was Yana, more beautiful than ever. Beautiful, even with her face closed and unreadable.

She said, as he came up level with her in the hallway, “Ramon is my brother and he watches out for me.”

She started down the hall toward the duikkerin room with the velvet drapes and crystal ball, talking over her shoulder to Ballard as she went, a bewildered Ristik trailing along behind.

“How did you—”

“Your mother-in-law.”

In the room she turned to face him, took both his hands in hers, and started laughing. “How much did you have to pay her?”

“Enough.”

“Too much, perhaps?” Her voice was teasing.

He said softly, “Never too much to see you again.”

Ristik was looking from one to the other as if watching the U.S. Open. Yana was treating this gadjo like an old friend! He opened his mouth to speak, then felt the chill of Yana’s piercing eyes. He shut his mouth, then opened it again, meekly.

“I’ll make some tea,” he said.

She nodded like a queen as she and Ballard sat down facing each other across the boojo table. They spoke in unison.

“So why did you—”

“So how have you—”

Both stopped. Both laughed. She took his hands across the table, as she had done with Teddy White, as she did with all the gadje marks. But wasn’t this different? Surely very different?

“So why did you seek me out in Santa Rosa?”

“Old times?” asked Ballard.

She merely shook her head. He nodded. Gestured around the room with its long concealing drapes.

“Could we maybe go out somewhere to—”

“No.”

He nodded again, going slow, letting her set the tone. She was all he had, but more than that, she was even more dazzling now than three years ago. And he’d been booted out by Beverly...

“Maybe later? Another time?”

Yana felt herself weakening, felt herself short of breath the way she had been last time. But she had been a girl then, rebelling against the dread return of her husband. She was a woman now, she must not give in to her attraction to this tall blond gadjo .

“To have your fortune told?” she asked almost coquettishly.

Ballard was staring at her, trying to read her.

“Whatever it takes,” he said.

So he felt it too. But even so, it could not be. She had taught herself to read and write, and when her husband had come back and had beaten her for it, she had left Madame Aquarra’s home and ofica with her bride price and had never returned.

Now, to the San Francisco kumpania, she was a woman of substance with her place in their councils. And very shortly, if she could keep Rudolph from getting the pink Cadillac, she would be Queen of all the Gypsies.

The pink Cadillac. The thirty-second Cadillac. If only...

And then she knew — knew before he said it — why Ballard was there. She shivered, because she had never believed in her own hocus-pocus: few Gypsy fortune-tellers did, or at least few would admit it. But here was the answer to her problem.

Ballard said, “You remember when we met that I was a detective looking for—”

“Yes. For a woman who had worked for your own company.”

“This time I’m a detective looking for a bunch of Gypsies.”

Yes. She had known what he was going to say. And now... now she knew that she was going to do to Rudolph just what he planned to do to her. She put scorn into her voice.

“So you come to my ofica asking me to betray—”

“I don’t want you to betray anyone,” Ballard said hotly.

He did, of course. That’s why he had come to her. But... not really. Really, it was the memory of that velvet night...

Yana disengaged her hands from his, sat back with a judging look across the table, not speaking. Ballard cleared his throat.

“All the Gypsies in the country can’t be your friends.”

The draperies behind him parted silently, and Ristik started through with a tray on which were cups and a teapot and several diamonds of baklava, dripping honey. Yana narrowed her eyes at him and he just as silently withdrew again.

“No,” she agreed gravely, “not even most of them.”

“So if someone you felt no obligation toward has...”

“Has what?” she asked quickly.

“Has, um... stolen some Cadillacs—”

“Stolen?”

“Absconded with. Embezzled.”

After a dramatic pause, she said, “And if I were one of those Gypsies who has done this, then I suppose you would—”

“Are you?”

Don’t hesitate. The pause betrayed the lie. “No.”

Don’t hesitate. The pause betrayed the lie. “Even if you were, I’d look the other way.”

It wasn’t really a lie. He would look the other way. The rest of DKA wouldn’t, but he would. Yana leaned toward him.

“There is another kumpania that has recently moved into the Bay Area, led by a man named Rudolph — I don’t know his last name or what he looks like — I have never met him. But he is a bad man, a bold man, he will do almost anything for money. It is such people who give the rom a bad name among the gadje, and such a man might well be involved in something like this... this theft of these Cadillacs...”

Ballard felt his excitement rising. If he could just get some leads from her... “There are over thirty cars,” he said.

“Of course if I am to ask around, perhaps learn something about their activities, where you might find some of these Cadillacs... I would lose money... be in some danger...”

“Hundred bucks for every recovery we make,” said Ballard promptly, with no disillusionment in his voice. She would surely want payment hand-to-hand, and when hands touched...