Joe Gores - 32 Cadillacs

“I hope you like Marlboros.”

She said sweetly, “Didn’t want a drink after all?” He seemed too busy making a U-turn back out toward Vermont to answer, so she put the needle in again. “No Gypsies in swirling silks and high heels doing flamencos on top of the bar?”

“Rain dance,” said Ballard shortly and sourly.

“I told you it was an Indian place. Admit it, Larry! Your precious Yana stiffed you for your hundred bucks!”

“DKa’s hundred bucks. We’ll go eat and come back.”

“Can’t admit he’s wrong,” sighed Giselle as if in sorrow.

She actually was delighted, of course, that there had been no Cadillac out in front, no Gyppo in swirling silks and hoop earrings beating a tambourine in one of the booths.

Sonia Lovari parked her shiny new Allante in the Rain-bird’s yellow zone a scant sixty seconds after they had departed. She had no feeling of impending danger: the car was safe there, as was she. She even had told the Indians in great detail about buying it from the insurance settlement of a fictional auto accident, so there was no overt envy over her fancy wheels.

When she had first started coming here, Sonia — known at the Rainbird as Maria Little Bird — had been unnerved by the broken pates, bloodied noses, and blackened eyes on the day the government checks arrived. But now, as a regular, she felt safe and welcome even though sometimes she had to duck thrown glasses and bottles, or grab her own glass and bottle up from the table as a large body crashed across it.

She was always apologized to; being small and an obvious noncombatant, she was never nabbed in the police raids; and at the Rainbird she was careful to never work the scams, cons, and grifts that made her so unwelcome in other South of Market bars.

“You see in the papers ’bout they wanna change the name of the Redskins football team?” asked Perching Raven, the heavy old Paiute woman on the next stool. She was very wide and brown and had the serene seamed face of a desert mountainside.

“K.C. Chiefs, too,” said Comes By Night from the other side of Sonia. He was a sturdy Oglala Sioux who had been looking for work for two years and looking to live up to his name with Little Bird for almost as long. Work eluded him, and Sonia in her secret soul was a traditional Gypsy: no sex with gadje , which she guessed Comes By Night had to be since he wasn’t rom .

“Atlanta Braves,” nodded Hank Feathers, old Perching Raven’s aged husband, not to be outdone.

“Red pride,” said Perching Raven sagely.

“That’s what I think, too,” said Sonia. Being unable to read and disinterested in anything sportif except the odds, she hadn’t the slightest idea what they were talking about; but this was a safe remark. She gestured for another pitcher to share with her friends. “Us redskins gotta stick together, right?”

“Right,” echoed the others as they filled their glasses.

“Hot damn!” exclaimed Ballard. He drifted the company Ford to the curb and stopped. “Didn’t I tell you?”

Giselle looked at the spanking-new Cadillac Allante parked in the Rainbird’s yellow zone. If the motor was warm and the keys were in it, she was going to scream. Ballard already had his Gypsy case folder open on his knees under the dash light, flicking awkwardly through the repo assignments for Allantes.

She ventured, “We don’t know it’s one of our Gyppo cars.”

“Three Allantes, one of them a red hardtop convertible.” He pointed through the windshield in a maddening manner. “Like that one. Right there. Red hardtop convertible.”

“Shut up,” agreed Giselle.

Ballard ripped away the key for the Allante he had stapled to the repossession order after cutting it himself per the code furnished by the dealer. He had his door open and one foot on the pavement. “You stay here and—”

“No, damn you! I’m not going to sit in the car while you’re out there being Mr. Macho Man.”

Ballard sighed and pulled his leg back in. Didn’t she realize that even as they hassled here, the Gyppo who had arrived while they were eating might come out and drive away?

“One of us should stay with this car, Giselle. If—”

“So you stay.”

“It’s right in front of the bar. Bar repos can get nasty.”

“Nasty? After your Gypsy sweetie set it all up for you? Heaven forfend!”

Ballard looked about to explode, but only gritted his teeth and said mildly, “Okay. We both go. But if any trouble starts, you get the hell out of there, car or no. All right?”

After a long moment, Giselle nodded. “All right.”

The Allante’s hood was still warm. No key in the ignition, but both doors unlocked with the windows down. Would a Gyppo leave his car that way? Maybe check the I.D. number...

The goddamn key didn’t fit.

“I can’t believe this shit,” he muttered to Giselle.

As Ballard got back out of the car, she slid in to start working the key, raking it in and out of the lock, always with a slight sideways pressure to make it pop over if the tumblers decided to click. He bent to speak through the open window.

“I’ll get my ignition switch to replace this one.”

Giselle nodded, kept working the key.

Dammit, he thought, moving away, he really should check that I.D. since his key didn’t work; but by this time he was determined to get the car if it was one of theirs or not. They could always dump it somewhere later if they were wrong.

From the company car he got the plastic letter file box that held his repo kit, and started back toward the Allante.

That’s when the old man and the old woman, craggy of face, dusky of skin, came from the Rainbird. Injuns! He froze, hoping they wouldn’t see Giselle ducked down in the Cadillac; but the bar lights shone right down into the front seat.

“Hey, whatta hell you doin’ in Little Bird’s car?”

Hank Feathers and Perching Raven started forward. Ballard gave a bellow and ran toward them, swinging the heavy plastic letter file in one hand like a weapon. They retreated hurriedly into the bar — but he knew they’d be back.

“Get outta here!” he yelled at Giselle. “Now!”

But the door of the Rainbird burst open to disgorge a dozen Indians on the warpath, led by a short squat girl who looked about 19 and seemed the stereotyped squaw woman.

“She’s stealing my car!”

“She’s not an Indian! She’s a Gypsy!” yelled Ballard, not fooled by Sonia’s bogus squaw woman looks.

At that instant the key turned under Giselle’s fingers and the Allante roared into life. She knew the rules — get the car first, worry about your partner later — so she tromped on it and was gone as Larry stood his ground, whirling the plastic box around in front of him to hold them at bay for her getaway.

Huge craggy Comes By Night swung a two-by-four at Ballard’s head. He ducked under it, rammed a karate blow known as a back fist up into the big man’s crotch. Comes By Night said, “OOOF!” and went to one knee, holding himself.

Ballard ululated “Yi yi yi yi yi!” as best he could at his momentarily disconcerted foes. He had counted coup.

Giselle slid the Allante to a stop at the dead end of the cul-de-sac, slammed it into reverse, head and one arm out the window, and goosed it. Okay, she’d secured the car like she was supposed to; now she’d run down the goddam redskins if that was what it would take to save Ballard.

Who had just been caught on the shoulder by a thrown brick that knocked him off balance. He spun, the swinging box cracking the side of a face, his foot lashing out in a side kick that sunk into a beer-soggy gut. Stale beer sprayed his face.

A great red monster chased by a twinned fan of brilliant light roared backward out of the darkness upon them, horn braying, engine wailing. Giselle slammed on the brakes for a half-skid that scattered Indians in every direction.