Joe Gores - 32 Cadillacs

Of course just the digits, without the letters, were useless, because there had to be about a zillion different three-letter combinations on California license plates ending in 444.

Dead end in Sonoma. But what about San Francisco? The reluctant Doc Swigart should have gotten back his canceled $5,000 check by this time.

Swigart, now that O’B wasn’t really a P.U.C. investigator, didn’t want to cooperate. O’B picked up the phone to call the worthy doctor’s wife and tell her all about how stupid her husband had been. Then, like magic, Swigart managed to dig out the canceled check.

Used to open an account (closed again as soon as the check had cleared) at an American West Bank on Geneva Ave near the Cow Palace. The check endorsed on the back with, and the account briefly opened in the name of... Tucon Yonkovich!

A Gypsy name. Could Tucon be guilty of one of those gaffes even the best occasionally make when dealing with doctors — whose credulity is legend among conmen because they believe they can never be wrong? Could Tucon have chanced his real name because he needed the check to clear before it could be stopped?

O’B stayed on the line while SRS in Sacramento computer-checked DMV records for possible driver’s license and auto registration data linking Yonkovich, Tucon, with a 1974 Plymouth Road Runner whose plate ended in 444. Yeah! Tucon had been thusly stupid. Such a car was registered to him in the 300 block of Oriente, Daly City — which O’B knew lay just south of the San Mateo County line near the Cow Palace. As the bank where Tucon Yonkovich had cashed Swigart’s check was near the Cow Palace.

By now the Road Runner doubtless had been sold to somebody in a bar; but eventually the Caddy should turn up at that address.

A wrecking crew was tearing down an old white frame house in the 300 block of Oriente. For one dismal moment O’B feared it was his house: the subject address. No. Four doors away. And squatting right on the subject address was a new Eldorado two-door notchback with paper plates. What could be sweeter?

O’B, pulses quickening though he’d done this thousands of times, parked his company car around the corner and got out with his ring of keys coded to all of the Gyppo Cadillacs.

The Eldorado was unlocked with the driver’s-side window down. O’B began running his keys, not even bothering to shut the door — the window was frozen open until he found the right key, anyway. Besides, Gyppos were talkers, not fighters, and O’B figured he could hold his own with any talker who ever lived.

Missed the right key on his first hurried run-through. He patiently started back at the front of the ring.

“HEY, WHADDA FUCK YOU DOIN’ IN MY CAR?”

O’B looked up through the windshield at the man bearing down on him, and his airy quips in response — having a picnic, flying to St. Louis, like that — died on his lips.

Because this wasn’t just a Gyppo, this was, for God’s sake. Paul Bunyan! Seven feet tall and three wide, black curling beard, black curling hair, snapping black eyes, wearing a red plaid lumberjack shirt with the sleeves rolled up almost to the shoulders and even carrying an axe in one hand.

Well, a sledgehammer, really, but at a time like this who the hell cared?

O’B frantically worked his keys, at the same time calling, “From the bank, from the bank, about your auto loa —”

The sledgehammer came whistling in an arc through the open window at his head, wielded by a Schwarzenegger arm lumped and knotted with muscle. O’B ducked; as the sledge took out the windshield from the inside, he threw himself across the soft leather seat, jerked the door handle, and slid headfirst out the far side of the car as the huge man grunted with the effort of his next swing. This one knocked the door off the glove box an inch behind O’b’s departing right heel.

O’B ran around to the front of the car, held up a placating palm. His other hand rested on the hood of the car.

“You don’t understand! I’m from the bank. I’m not a car thief, I’m the legal repre—”

The sledge smashed in the hood where his hand had been a moment before. He ran back around to the driver’s side as his pursuer yelled, “You sonna beech, I gonna kill you!”

Jesus, that huge guy was fast. O’B fled down the side of the car with Paul Bunyan tight behind. Swinging.

CRUNCH! Driver’s door.

SMASH! Rear door.

THUD! Trunk lid.

O’B was able to dive back in through the rider’s side to get in a couple of twists with the next key because the sledge stuck for a moment in the hole it made in the trunk. The next blow just missed his ankle and demolished the Eldorado’s C/D player and tape deck as O’B dove out again.

Going around the front of the car as the big guy came out the driver’s side, yelling, “Gypsies are supposed to be nonviolent!”

Paul Bunyan paused to rip out the front seat and throw it across the street.

“I’LL GYPSY YOU, BASTARD SONNA BEECH...”

As O’B ran yet again, the sledge smashed in the headlights and grille. Back through the car, twist another key, the motor started, leave the key there, out again, run around it again, there went a hubcap wobbling away across the street, a blow at his legs took out the muffler. Back inside, slapped it into gear, crouched in the bare space behind the wheel, goosed it.

Gimpy-gimpy jerk-jerk but fast, must have bent an axle somehow, goddamnedest Gypsy he’d ever...

“ KILLYOUKILLYOUKILLYOUKILL YOU KILL... YOU... KILL... YOU... KILL... YOU... kill you... kill...”

THUDS, CRASHES, CRUNCHES as Paul Bunyan ran alongside belaboring the Eldorado with his hammer. O’B finally began pulling away. Just as he reached the corner, Paul Bunyan threw the sledge after him, SMASH, there went the rear window...

Safely away.

Jackson B. Gideon, president of California Citizens Bank, had a poor big devil of a stomach that, like Cyrano’s nose, marched on before him by a quarter of an hour. He also had John L. Lewis eyebrows crawling like hairy caterpillars around the top of his face, a beaked fleshy nose, pouting lips Sly Stallone would have killed for, and two chins with a third working on its growth portfolio. He splayed out of his dove-grey wool double-breasted suit the way a sausage splays out when you cut its skin.

“It just won’t do,” he said. “It just won’t do at all.”

They were in the bank’s cul-de-sac storage lot behind an old factory backed up against the base of Telegraph Hill. Ballard, whose butt still hurt and who thought he was there to be praised for his good work, not reamed out by a bank president, started to speak — but Stan Groner cut in smoothly.

“Well, J.B., they did recover the car under very difficult conditions, and—”

“And the city wants to bring suit against the bank.” Ballard was astounded. “What the hell for?”

“New door for the precinct house,” explained Stan. “New light fixture. New front steps. New balustrade. New—”

“They were trying to kill me, for God sake!”

“Would have been cheaper if they had,” sniffed J.B.

Not that the bank had any intention of paying the city one red cent — J.B. had elucidated the policy at that day’s board meeting — but field men had to be kept firmly in their place.

He added in disdain, “Since it occurred in the course of a recovery action by Daniel Kearny Associates, I feel that the costs should come out of your company’s recompense.”

“Now just a damned...”

Stan Groner caught Ballard’s eye and shook his head slightly. Ballard stopped talking, face rich with unspent anger. Gideon, that smug bastard, had never been out in the field in his life, what did he know?