Joe Gores - 32 Cadillacs

She stopped dead at sight of the shiny black limo, a flush mantling her cheeks; Larry must have followed her to the St. Mark on Saturday, so he must know she had just left Rudolph snoring on his king-size bed in oyster-depleted sleep.

“Bastard!” she hissed in her embarrassment.

As he thought, She spent the whole weekend banging that Gyppo fuck, and then she gave him Yana’s pink Cadillac besides!

“Slut!” he snapped in his hurt and confusion.

It was war.

Not for O’Bannon. He had arrived in Hawaii midday Saturday following the trail of a Rudolph clan member named Ral Wanko who had shipped a long sleek white De Ville to Honolulu, his home base, the day after the big Cadillac grab. That was all O’B had, so Kearny had lined up a P.I. contact for him on Oahu.

“Little Jap guy named Shinji Ueda. I met him on Maui during the P.I. convention at the Kaanapali Beach Resort last year,” he explained. “Size of your thumb, but smart — he’ll probably have Wanko picking you up at the airport in the De Ville.”

Not quite. But Mr. Ueda was there himself, holding up a big neatly lettered O’BANNON sign on a wooden stick. Ueda was short indeed, about five-two, and a crow among peacocks. Instead of the usual aloha shirt and shorts and zori, he wore a three-piece dark suit, a dark tie, and highly polished black oxfords.

He bowed. “O’Bannon-san. Shinji Ueda.”

O’B returned it. “Make that O’B-san, Ueda-san.”

Ueda had a round head and crinkly cheeks and narrow bright inquisitive eyes. Driving the Ala Moana Highway from the airport to Waikiki, he cast O’B a long worried sideways look.

“I have made certain inquiries.”

O’B had his window down so warm moist air delightfully heavy with flowers could ruffle his russet hair. “And?”

“Is very dangerous. Ral Wanko is a very bad man indeed, with very bad friends. They steal very nice cars to order. Repaint, or take apart to use parts for other cars—”

“Chop shop,” said O’B.

A short bow behind the wheel. “Even so.” A pause. “They move auto-altering establishment many times a year. Hard to find.” Ueda drove with his hands at ten and two in the proper manner. He bowed again, slightly. “But I go find for you.”

O’B took him at his word. He dug his toes into dazzling white sand in front of his high-rise hotel, swam in the ocean, drank at the beachside bar, saw the Banyan Tree, and at sunset wandered along the Ala Wai Promenade watching the sailboats ghost by. After dark he went downtown, barely avoided a fight in a poolhall, rejected the advances of a truly stunning hapa-haole hooker, and went to bed alone feeling sober and virtuous and that he hadn’t had so much fun since his Army days.

That was Saturday.

On Sunday, Mr. Ueda took him up to the incredible verdant freefall of the Pali, where many brave warriors had gone to their death, then out to the rich exclusive streets off Kahala Avenue. Not a word of business. Mr. Ueda had his golf clubs in the backseat and was one of the peacocks today, wearing a short-sleeved flowered shirt that showed a chest and arms suggesting he spent a lot of hours in the dojo breaking bricks with his bare hands.

They came around a sweep of drive to a stunning view out to the Pacific past the shoulder of decayed volcano known as Diamond Head. Blue-edged fluffy clouds dreamed on the distant horizon. Ueda gestured at a long sleek red Jaguar XJ6 parked at the curb.

“That one,” he said. “Tonight.”

O’B craned around at it. “That one what tonight?”

“They steal. You follow to chop shop. De Ville be there.”

They had rounded the Diamond Head crater, were entering Kapiolani Park. In the moist heavy air, the lush vegetation rang with the squawks and shrieks of the zoo’s exotic harsh-voiced tropical birds.

“How do you know all this stuff about ’em?” asked O’B.

Ueda laughed, hee-hee-hee. “Call in lotta favors. Sam Spade, huh?” He slapped O’b’s knee in almost shocking intimacy. “I give you car to drive, you stake out Jaguar, you catch ’em, be big hero with Five-O.” Another hee-hee-hee, a punch on the arm. “Book ’em, Dano!”

The car stopped under the frangipani bushes flanking the hotel parking lot. Heat bounced off the sun-softened blacktop. The hotel balconies were a white ladder climbing a blue heaven. They could have been in Dallas. O’B cleared his throat.

“Ah, Shinji, maybe you’d like to, ah, come along tonight, share in the glory with Five-O.” He gestured. “I bet you know judo, karate, kung fu, aikido, all that martial-arts stuff...”

Alarm passed across Mr. Ueda’s face. “Oh no no no no. No know martial arts. Know golf.” His seamed face split into a huge grin. “Low eighties.”

That was Sunday.

After midnight, thus technically Monday, O’B was parked under the shadows of some anonymous estate’s tall hibiscus border when he heard the almost silent rush of a bicycle-built-for-two manned by two massive figures in aloha shirts. Far down the wide curving expensive street, the one riding behind slid off to dart over to the Jag XJ6. His partner kept pedaling.

Pretty slick. No wonder no one ever heard the thieves.

Motor. Lights. Red wink of taillights, one marred by the “X” of black electrician’s tape O’B had put over it earlier. This helped him track the Jag through still-heavy Sunday night freeway traffic to the Pali Highway Interchange, over to Ward Avenue, and into the industrial district.

There O’B had to drop back so far that he lost it, but going by an abandoned-looking warehouse he saw double doors sending out a widening wedge of light. When the Jaguar entered and the doors closed again, O’b’s vague silhouette slid through the final sliver of light behind it. Inside, he crouched beside a BMW, panting with excitement and perhaps even terror.

The two huge men both looked Hawaiian. But as one got out of the Jag, the other said, “Any trouble, Ral?”

So the hulking driver was the Gypsy, Ral Wanko. Who shook his head and said, “Like silk,” then stopped to stare at the tape on the taillight. “Hey, bruddah, whadda hell’s this?”

“Who cares? We got da kine work to do.”

Their upper halves disappeared beneath the Jag’s hood. Beyond the midnight mechanics was the De Ville O’B was after, and beyond that, through another set of wide-open double doors, an enclosed parking area and an alley. By merely going around the block, O’B could have snuck up on the De Ville and grabbed it.

But now he was trapped. Closed automatic doors behind him, the two midnight mechanics between him and the De Ville and the safety of the open doors beyond it. Huge midnight mechanics. He couldn’t go back, through, or around.

But could he go over ?

The peaked tin roof was held up by two-by-six beams bolted together in rectangular patterns, supported by angled crisscross two-by-fours bolted to other beams above. If he could get up there, could he hump his way along one of those horizontal beams to the far wall where a rough ladder of two-by-fours waited?

O’B crept back to the similar ladder fastened to the wall behind him. Ten agonizing minutes, one rung at a time, a fly on the wall in plain sight, freezing each time one of the car choppers emerged from beneath the hood.

Just as he straddled a beam far above them, Ral Wanko laid down his wrench and wiped his hands on a greasy red rag.

“Gotta go take a dump.”

One gone. Do it now. Grip the beam ahead with both hands. Lean forward, weight on arms, slide butt forward eight or ten inches. Again. Again again again. And yet again. He was almost directly over the Jaguar now...