Joe Gores - 32 Cadillacs

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32 Cadillacs: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация

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It begins in the small Iowa town of Steubenville, where a seemingly respectable citizen takes a head-over-heels tumble on a department store escalator. As if on cue, Cadillacs — 31 in all — start disappearing from lots in the San Francisco Bay area, as a team of scam artists use phone fraud, bank fraud, and pure criminal genius to do one California bank out of $1.3 million worth of Detroit’s finest.
The bank wants those cars back, and turns to Daniel Kearny Associates to get it done. Rock-jawed, relentless Dan Kearny puts his best agents, as well as two new ones, on the case. It doesn’t take long for Kearny’s team to find out what they’re up against: Gyppos. Con artists, scammers, liars, thieves and dangerous charmers, Gypsies are one nation united in street crime. And since the escalator fall has mortally wounded their beloved King, they’ve decided to get to his funeral in Cadillac style. But there’s one more Cadillac to contend with: the shocking pink 1958 Cadillac ragtop convertible the dying leader insists on being buried in. The Gypsy who can get his hands on one is sure to be the next King... or Queen.
When the tilt starts, it’s Gypsies 32, DKA O. But by the second inning the score changes. From San Francisco to Hawaii, from Florida to New York, it’s a matter of everybody scamming everybody in a cross-country duel of wits and nerves. And the action won’t let up until both repomen and Gyppos reach the dying Gypsy King — and the ultimate scam of all.

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Grimaldi casually laid on the table a perfectly harmless penlight that looked like an engorged ballpoint pen, and then proceeded to ignore it. Which assured the others couldn’t keep their eyes off it.

“Yeah,” he said sarcastically, “sure. You got it. The underambassador and the terrorist drove away together.”

“You’re trying to tell us,” sneered Gunnarson, “that another terrorist walked in there and rescued her and drove her off in his limo? Just like that?”

“No. I’m telling you that I walked in there and drove her off in my limo — just-like that.”

Shayne chuckled, “And took her where?”

“Out,” said Grimaldi bleakly.

Smathers suddenly had to take off his eyeglasses and start to polish them with his display handkerchief. The quaver was back in his voice, which was almost a whisper. “There... was another phone call... saying... we had taken one of theirs...”

Shayne couldn’t let go of it. His voice was low, intense, furious. “You’re claiming you knocked off this blond bimbo?”

Grimaldi ignored him, spoke instead to Smathers.

“I’ve learned their usual M.O. is to threaten the involved institution directly when they lose one of their people...”

“Well-l-l... yes, the call did... threaten us, but...”

Grimaldi drummed his fingers on the table, frowned, sent bleak eyes around to each of them in turn.

“You don’t have a lot of time, gents.”

Gunnarson demanded abruptly, “Do you have any proof the blonde was a terrorist? Any proof the phone call was real? Any proof that you...” he stumbled over the word, “ removed her?”

“What is proof? I imagine the real Ali Akbar Zuhrain has had his meeting with the President by now, am I correct?”

“Yes, but—”

“And has left the hotel, since he is not staying here?”

“I believe so, yes, but...”

“Zuhrain didn’t have a limo, you can check that out. I do. It’s parked down in the garage with the blond bitch’s scarf lying on the front seat, if you want to go look. Here are my keys.” Grimaldi dumped them on the table in front of Shayne. Shayne made no move to pick them up. His ruddy countenance had paled slightly. Grimaldi pointed at the harmless penlight. “I took this off her body...” — he dropped his transmitter beside the penlight — “and this from her attaché case.”

“What... are they?” quavered Smathers, his calendar age at last. Grimaldi flicked the penlight with a contemptuous finger.

“Pen-bomb. Inside are a miniature receiver, detonator—”

They started back, blanching. “A bomb? Are you—”

“I removed the C-4 from it. It’s harmless.” Grimaldi tapped the transmitter. “Transmitter, present to the same frequency as the receiver in the pen-bomb. Once the President was in the car, all she had to do was—”

“My God!” Gunnarson looked as if he were about to faint. “And now they are threatening the hotel itself...”

A subdued Shayne began, “What if the Secret Service or the FBI or the police find out... find the blonde...”

“She went swimming about thirty miles out,” said Grimaldi. “Got tangled up in some scrap iron and dove out of a small plane that happened to be wave-hopping under the Coast Guard radar.”

“Did you—”

“Personally. One of my people dumped the body, of course.” He said it offhandedly and stood up, pocketing harmless penlight and transmitter. “She’s a freebie, but it’s seventy-five K in forty-eight hours for the rest of them. After the forty-eight there’s nothing I can do for you. My principals are tired of your delays, and I need an answer for them.”

Gunnarson was wiping sweat from his forehead with one of the cloth napkins. “You’re talking about... killing people! You can’t expect us to just—”

“They plan to kill you,” said Grimaldi reasonably.

The forty-eight-hour deadline was genuine — that was as far as he could stretch the Grimaldi persona, then the real Grimaldi was due back to New York from his Maine fishing trip. When he found his apartment rifled and his credit cards gone, he would hit the street yelling and his cards would hit the stolen-card hotline a few hours after that.

Forty-eight hours for $75,000. Or zero.

Same with Giselle Marc. Tomorrow she would come to the hotel and he would feed her some leads to a few of the Cadillacs being driven by Yana’s people. And afterward... perhaps...

It was nearly midnight when Dan Kearny let himself into the office. He had driven directly there after his flight from LAX, rather than home, because he’d had his fun in the field and suddenly, dog-tired as he was, had to touch DKA again. Truth to tell, what was worrying him most was what he and Giselle could do about the mountains of wastepaper and layers of dust accumulating since he’d foolishly dumped the janitorial service...

He stopped dead just inside the front door, keys forgotten in his hand. All the lights were on in the middle of the night, and the whole place was spotless. Almost in time to the gospel music from the back room, he swiped a hand across a desktop — no dust. Giselle must have found a dynamite new service that...

Gospel music? From the back room was coming gospel music!

He went hurriedly back between the deserted desks and through the open doorway. At Giselle’s desk was a fat black woman of about 60 whom he’d never seen before. She wore black stretch pants and a scarlet sweater and her head was wrapped in a bright-hued bandana to keep the dust away. In one hand was a poorboy, in the other a Styrofoam cup of coffee. Her eyes were shut, she was rocking her head from side to side in time with the music, crooning along with it in a rich dark contralto.

This was the new cleaning service?

“Ma’am, pardon me... ma’am... ma’am —”

She shrieked and jumped up, arms and legs going every which way, eyes popping wide in a caricature of black surprise.

“It’s okay,” said Kearny soothingly, making little palm-down shushing movements with his hands. “I just wondered if—”

But she was in motion, hitting the stop button on the boom-box and dropping her sandwich into a paper bag and draining her coffee and dropping the cup into a big trash bucket that stood upright on a two-wheeled cart beside the desk, with brooms and mops sticking out of it. Meanwhile, she kept up a running barrage of chatter as she sped about.

“Scairt me half to death, you must be Mr. Kearny, yessir, all finished up in here, jus on my way out, yessir, finishin up my snack an Ah be outta here, yessir, everything done jus apple-pie nice, didn’t mean to set at no desk, neither, nossir...”

And, pushing the big metal trash bucket on its two-wheeled frame, she was through the back door and gone. Kearny blinked after her as if he’d just seen a UFO, then shook his head and went back out to the front office and down to his desk.

He stood there idly leafing through the teetery mountains of billing, subconsciously hearing voices coming down from the second floor through the narrow stairwell behind his desk. Somebody working late. Dozens of files. Looked like the place ran better without him... than... with... him...

The top file on the stack was PERNOD, MAYBELLE.

Maybelle Pernod, fat, black, and 61, streetwalking to keep her impossibly expensive Continental. Giselle had fallen for her hard-luck story like a ton of bricks...

New cleaning lady, fat, black, probably 61...

And it was Giselle’s voice he was hearing from upstairs, along with a male rumble out of which he could pick no words. No she didn’t! Giselle didn’t get away with this crap!

Kearny took the stairs two at a time, went along the hall to a cubicle where Ken Warren was typing, a thick stack of finished reports beside the machine. Giselle was sitting on the edge of the desk, swinging her feet and talking.

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